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When Eberhard Fischer takes the floor, visibly moved, after a special screening of Eberhard As Seen By Amit in early April at the Cinéma du Réel festival in Paris, he introduces its author, Amit Dutta, as an “independent Indian filmmaker” based in northern India, in the Himalayan mountains. He describes his long-time friend as a kind of modern hermit, something of a poet, and too prone to motion sickness to accompany his films to festivals. With a smile, Fischer notes that although he has often travelled to India, Dutta has never visited him in Switzerland.
In his hand he holds a few pages – copies of emails Dutta sent to him to present the film. “I make films to explore and capture a life that appeals to me. A life of education, diligence, self-control and intense focus,” Dutta writes in the emails. “That is what I saw when I worked with Eberhard Fischer on Nainsukh in 2010,” a film inspired by the life and work of the 18th-century Indian miniature painter.
Born in Germany, Fischer has lived most of his life in Switzerland. He is deeply familiar with Indian art, to which he has devoted numerous books and exhibitions as director of Zurich’s Rietberg Museum, a post he held for 27 years.
