Kaveri Kaul

Kavery Kaul is an American filmmaker, born in India and brought up in the U.S. The stories she tells explore the shifting frames of who “we” are. Her character-driven works look for the intimacy, emotions and specificity of thought that give rise to truly universal concerns. Her directing and producing credits include Back Walking Forward, Long Way from Home, Cuban Canvas, One Hand Don’t Clap, and First Look.

Kavery Kaul or Kaveri Kaul
Born1952
Kolkata, India
Alma materHarvard University
OccupationFilm Director, Producer
Websitekaverykaul.com

Early life

Kolkata-born Kavery Kaul (Bengali: কাবেরি) (born Kavery Dutta) attended Ashok Hall School there. She moved to the U.S. at the age of six with her parents. Her mother Kanak Dutta was a history teacher, and her father M. Jan Dutta was an economist. Both were active in the political life of the U.S. and the building of community among Indian-Americans.

Kaul attended Friends’ Central School near Philadelphia and Rutgers Preparatory School in Somerset, New Jersey. Later, she received her bachelor's degree Magna cum Laude from Harvard University/Radcliffe College, where, as an English major, she discovered the poetry of Sonia Sanchez in one of the first courses outside the conventional literature curriculum. At the same time, she immersed herself in an unexpected course on the films of Satyajit Ray.

Career

Before setting out as a director, Kaul headed for Paris, finding France to be a fertile middle ground where she lived for two years. There, she learned the craft of editing at Scopcolor, a documentary production house launched by the French television journalist Roger Louis when he was fired by ORTF, the official French radio and television office, after the political unrest of May, 1968.

Kaul returned to New York City to continue her work as an editor on films including Robert Richter’s Vietnam: An American Journey[1] and Peter Schnall’s The Real Thing[2]. “If you know how to put a story together in the end, you know what to look for when you’re filming. Editing teaches directing,” she once said.

She launched her filmmaking career with the documentary First Look[3]. Filmed in Cuba and the U.S, it captures the first cultural exchange between the two countries since the Cuban Revolution when visiting artists Eduardo "Choco" Roca and Nelson Dominguez meet the American art world and a curious American public.

Her other directing credits include Back Walking Forward[4], about one family's search for a new normal after their son's traumatic brain injury; Long Way from Home[5], an intimate look at three teenage girls in their first encounter with differences of race and class at “top” schools; One Hand Don’t Clap[6], Calypso (and Soca) music from Brooklyn to the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, through the eyes of Grandmaster Lord Kitchener and the groundbreaking Calypso Rose; Wild at Art[7], a portrait of Philippines-born Washington painter Pacita Abad; and Cuban Canvas[8], a story of artists in Havana in 2018, which was commissioned[9] by The Kennedy Center for the festival, Artes de Cuba: From the Island to the World[10].

Kavery Kaul has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University[11], City College of New York (CCNY)[12] and School of Visual Arts (SVA NYC)[13].

Other Work

Kaul has always questioned who tells the story and whose voice is heard --- on or off screen. She was one of the first South Asians to serve on the Selection Committee of the Asian American International Film Festival (AIFF). She served on the Jury for the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival[14]. She is a co-founder of Manavi, the first organization created to stop violence against South Asian women in the U.S. Kaul is author of the articles “Of Slumdogs and Loveleen”[15] for Women's Media Center, “Family Values” in A. Magazine, and “Cinema in India” in Filmmakers Newsletter. Her TEDx Talk addresses the importance of stories that connect people.

Awards and Honors

Kaul's honors include: Fulbright Scholar[16][17], Logan Nonfiction Fellowship[18], and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship[19]. Her films have screened at the Telluride Film Festival, London Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival[20], Film Festival of India, FESPACO (Burkina Faso), DOC NYC[21], Havana Film Festival New York[22], Margaret Mead Film Festival[23][24], Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival[25]. Her documentaries have been shown in theaters and on television, in the U.S. and internationally. They have been featured at distinguished venues including: National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Kennedy Center[9], Whitney Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, and Cleveland Museum of Art. Her work has received the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Best Cultural Film Award (Havana), and a Proclamation of Excellence from New York City.

Filmography

2018 Cuban Canvas[26][21][23][25][27][9] (Documentary – director, producer)

2011 Back Walking Forward[4][28] (Documentary – director, producer)

2006 Long Way from Home[5] (Documentary – director, producer)

1995 Wild at Art[7] (Documentary – director, producer)

???? Soul Gone Home[29] (Fiction – director, producer)

1991 One Hand Don’t Clap[6] (Documentary – director, producer, editor)

1988 First Look[3] (Documentary – director, producer)

Articles | Reviews | Interviews

“Kavery Kaul: Stories that Cross Boundaries” by Kimberly Gyatso, , SPAN Magazine, March/April 2016, p. 34-35

“The ‘New Normal’ After Brain Injury" by Lesley A. Sharp, Anthropology Now, Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2012, p. 90 (JSTOR) (WorldCat)[30]

“Conversation with Kavery Kaul” by Jennifer Merin, About.com

"Filmmaker Kavery Kaul on Back Walking Forward" by Jennifer Merin, Alliance of Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) Blog | Cinema Citizen, 25 May 2011

"Long Way From Home" - Film Review, Film Threat, 9 February 2006

"Calypso, Past and Present, As Two Veterans See It" - Film Review by Vincent Canby, New York Times, 28 August 1991

“Celebrating the Culture of Calypso” - Film Review by John Anderson, New York Newsday, 28 August 1991

"Of Slumdogs and Loveleen" by Kavery Kaul, Women's Media Center | News and Features, 17 February 2009

gollark: Apparently entropy is some kind of information theory thing as well as a physics thing because of course.
gollark: > “Deep” =/= intellectually usefulIndeed. Things which sound profound do not actually have to *mean* things.
gollark: Instead of just stealth-assuming different things, I mean.
gollark: You can't not assume things. That would make it literally impossible to do any reasoning about anything, if you actually assume *nothing*.
gollark: Tautologies are tautologies.
  1. Vietnam: An American Journey, retrieved 2019-10-23
  2. Real to Reel Productions (Orange, Calif.); Schnall, Peter. The real thing. [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified].
  3. First Look, retrieved 2019-10-23
  4. Back Walking Forward, retrieved 2019-10-23
  5. Long Way from Home, retrieved 2019-10-23
  6. One Hand Don't Clap, retrieved 2019-10-23
  7. Wild at Art, retrieved 2019-10-23
  8. Cuban Canvas, retrieved 2019-10-23
  9. "Film Screening: Cuban Canvas (a Kavery Kaul documentary, part of Artes de Cuba) - The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts". www.kennedy-center.org. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  10. "Overview - Artes de Cuba | The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts". cms.kennedy-center.org. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  11. "Past Courses | Center for American Studies". americanstudies.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  12. "Award-winning CCNY Filmmaker Named Fulbright Fellow | The City College of New York". www.ccny.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  13. "SVA Continuing Education Bulletin | Art Therapy | Fine Art". Scribd. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  14. "MIAAC FILM FESTIVAL: November 5-9, 2008". www.iaac.us. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  15. February 17; Arts, 2009 | Kavery Kaul |; culture; International. "Of Slumdog and Loveleen - Women's Media Center". www.womensmediacenter.com. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  16. "Kavery Kaul | Fulbright Scholar Program". www.cies.org. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  17. "Award-winning CCNY Filmmaker Named Fulbright Fellow | The City College of New York". www.ccny.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  18. "Kavery Kaul". Carey Institute for Global Good. 2016-05-04. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  19. "Directory of Artists' Fellows & Finalists" (PDF). New York Foundation for the Arts. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  20. "Kavery Kaul". FilmArte. Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  21. "CUBAN CANVAS". DOCNYC. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  22. "CUBAN CANVAS". 20th Havana Film Festival New York. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  23. "Margaret Mead Film Festival 2019 | CUBAN CANVAS". American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  24. "Margaret Mead Film Festival | Through The Artist's Lens | CUBAN CANVAS". American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  25. "Cuban Canvas". trinidad+tobago film festival. 2019-07-23. Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  26. Cuban Canvas, retrieved 2019-10-23
  27. "Cuban Canvas - aug&ohr medien". Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  28. "Filmmaker Kavary Kaul on BACK WALKING FORWARD | Cinema Citizen". Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  29. "SOUL GONE HOME – Kavery Kaul riverfilms". Retrieved 2019-10-23.
  30. "The "New Normal" after Brain Injury Back Walking Forward. 2011. Directed and produced by Kavery Kaul. River Films. 40 minutes". Anthropology Now. 4 (1): 90–92. 2012. doi:10.5816/anthropologynow.4.1.0090. ISSN 1942-8200. OCLC 4896607689.
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