Single screen cinemas are a dying breed. Photographer Hemant Chaturvedi has been travelling incessantly for over two years by road, trying to photo-document India’s vanishing show palaces, once the hub of entertainment for all classes of people. “The silence in an abandoned cinema theatre is more deafening than a movie soundtrack,” says Chaturvedi. In a #TalkTheWalk at Khaki Lab, he will share the process of achieving the goals he set for himself, how he seeks out the cinema theatres and the nitty-gritties that go into his photographic documentation. And of course, all the anecdotes he has accumulated while travelling.

Venue: Khaki Lab, Fort, Mumbai

About the speaker

A cinematographer for most of his adult life, Hemant Chaturvedi has filmed commercial movies such as Company, Makdee, Maqbool, Kurbaan, Ishaqzaade, 15 Park Avenue and Arjun the Warrior Prince. He left the profession and decided to return to full-time still photography a few years ago. “I only work on my own projects, which are entirely self initiated, self motivated and self funded,” he says. A graduate of St Xavier’s College, the documentarist is, besides cinemas, also photographing Dhrupad gurukuls and British-era cemeteries.