India Marks Filmmaker Guru Dutt’s Centenary With Tributes and Screenings

India’s film community on Wednesday marked the 100th birth anniversary of Guru Dutt, the pioneering director-actor whose moody visual style and uncompromising themes reshaped Hindi cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Cinematheques and television channels are running restored prints of classics such as “Pyaasa,” “Kaagaz Ke Phool” and “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam,” while streaming platforms have curated dedicated collections. Stage actor Arif Zakaria, who portrays Dutt in the acclaimed play “Rahenge Sadaa Gardish Mein Taare,” called the filmmaker’s life "mythical" yet profoundly human, echoing the contradictions that biographer Yasser Usman says first drew him to Dutt’s story. Media essays are revisiting the director’s nuanced depiction of women and his little-known connection to Madras through location work on “Kaagaz Ke Phool.” The centenary has also prompted fresh scholarship on Dutt’s influence, underscoring why films that once failed commercially now rank among Indian cinema’s most studied works.