Cities of Stories

A Short Documentary on the Sculptural World of Asim Basu by Arohi Sengupta

Asim Basu has spent more than five decades translating the quiet pulse of Kolkata into bronze. His figures — newspaper readers in para adda, a violinist absorbed in sound, lovers sheltering from the rain, a mother with her child — do not announce themselves. They simply inhabit the space, carrying the weight and tenderness of ordinary lives.

In this short documentary, young filmmaker Arohi Sengupta approaches Basu’s work with unusual sensitivity. She allows the sculptures to speak through gesture, posture and the charged emptiness between forms, capturing the same restrained poetry that defines the artist’s practice. Filmed in quiet conversation with the works themselves, the film becomes less a conventional portrait and more a visual meditation on how everyday moments can be held, remembered and made lasting.

Presented by Aakriti Art Gallery, Cities of Stories offers a gentle yet precise introduction to one of Bengal’s most consistent and understated sculptural voices.