Professor Annette Insdorf Interviews Associate Professor Ramin Bahrani for 92Y's 'Reel Pieces' Film Series

Professor Annette Insdorf recently interviewed Associate Professor Ramin Bahrani (CC ’96) for 92nd Street Y’s signature film series, Reel Pieces. Bahrani is the writer and director of The White Tiger, which was adapted from the Booker Prize-winning novel by Aravind Adiga (CC ’97) and was released on Netflix to much acclaim. The film follows an ambitious driver for a rich Indian family as he uses his wit and cunning to escape from poverty and become an entrepreneur. 

Insdorf, who has moderated Reel Pieces for over 30 years, is an internationally renowned educator, and author of Francois Truffaut, Indelible Shadows: Film and Holocaust, Philip Kaufman, Intimations: The Cinema of Wojciech Has, and Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes. She has been a panel moderator and jury member for film festivals such as the Berlin Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival. 

Bahrani is an award-winning Iranian American writer, director, and producer. He has won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a “Someone to Watch” Independent Spirit Award. He has been the subject of retrospectives around the world and all his cinematic work is housed in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His previous films include 99 Homes (2014), Goodbye Solo (2008), Chop Shop (2007), and Man Push Cart (2005). Bahrani’s television film, Fahrenheit 451 (2018), for HBO, starring Michael B. Jordan, was nominated for 5 Emmys, including Best TV Movie, and won him a PGA award for Best Television Film. 

The evening was a reunion of sorts—not only are Insdorf and Bahrani colleagues in the Film Program at Columbia University School of the Arts, but Bahrani is a former student of Insdorf’s as well. “It’s always special for me to see you,” Bahrani told Insdorf, “You were my very first film professor when I was an undergraduate at Columbia University. I never had classes in filmmaking, but I had classes in film theory—how to think and watch movies—and you were the first person who taught me that, so my understanding of how to make movies started with you.”

As Insdorf noted, Bahrani and The White Tiger author, Adiga met while undergraduates at Columbia and became close friends and collaborators. The White Tiger, which was Adiga’s 2008 debut novel, is dedicated to Bahrani. “I remember in 2004, getting the rough drafts of The White Tiger, and immediately thinking, ‘My god, this is incredible,’ Bahrani said. “Especially the main character...I always thought it would be a good film, but I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do when it was published in 2008 for a variety of reasons. But then, maybe four years ago, Aravind called me and asked me, ‘What do you think about The White Tiger?’ and I said I would love to make it.” The timing finally felt right to Bahrani, who thought it might be possible with platforms like Netflix developing more content to get the funds necessary to greenlight a project of this scale that was set in India and told this specific story. While Adiga did not have an active involvement in the filmmaking process, he gave Bahrani creative permission to make any changes that were necessary in adapting it to the screen. “I showed him the movie when it was finished,” Bahrani said, “and thank god he liked it.”

Insdorf also asked Bahrani how teaching directing at Columbia has informed his own work. “From an artistic point of view, students have their own vision, they have their own way of thinking, they have their own mindset, and you’re constantly being hit with different ideas you hadn’t encountered before...Really I don’t think of it as teaching. The craft, maybe you could say is ‘teaching,’ but beyond that, I find myself just another person in the room who might have a little more experience than them, and maybe I can help show them the road they’re trying to go on—not any other road, but their own specific road, whatever that is, for their own vision.”

The White Tiger is now streaming on Netflix. To watch the complete interview, visit the 92nd Street Y’s website.