Documentary Film in India
Documentary Film in India

Author: Giulia Battaglia

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-11-22

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1351375636

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This book maps a hundred years of documentary film practices in India. It demonstrates that in order to study the development of a film practice, it is necessary to go beyond the classic analysis of films and filmmakers and focus on the discourses created around and about the practice in question. The book navigates different historical moments of the growth of documentary filmmaking in India from the colonial period to the present day. In the process, it touches upon questions concerning practices and discourses about colonial films, postcolonial institutions, independent films, filmmakers and filmmaking, the influence of feminism and the articulation of concepts of performance and performativity in various films practices. It also reflects on the centrality of technological change in different historical moments and that of film festivals and film screenings across time and space. Grounded in anthropological fieldwork and archival research and adopting Foucault’s concept of ‘effective history’, this work searches for points of origin that creates ruptures and deviations taking distance from conventional ways of writing film histories. Rather than presenting a univocal set of arguments and conclusions about changes or new developments of film techniques, the originality of the book is in offering an open structure (or an open archive) to enable the reader to engage with mechanisms of creation, engagement and participation in film and art practices at large. In adopting this form, the book conceptualises ‘Anthropology’ as also an art practice, interested, through its theoretico-methodological approach, in creating an open archive of engagement rather than a representation of a distant ‘other’. Similarly, documentary filmmaking in India is seen as primarily a process of creation based on engagement and participation rather than a practice interested in representing an objective reality. Proposing an innovative way of perceiving the growth of the documentary film genre in the subcontinent, this book will be of interest to film historians and specialists in Indian cinema(s) as well as academics in the field of anthropology of art, media and visual practices and Asian media studies.

Indian Documentary Film and Filmmakers
Indian Documentary Film and Filmmakers

Author: Shweta Kishore

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1474433081

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Based on detailed onsite observation of documentary production, circulation practices and the analysis of film texts, this book identifies independence as a'tactical practice', contesting the normative definitions and functions assigned to culture, cultural production and producers in a neoliberal economic system.

Documentary Films in India
Documentary Films in India

Author: Aparna Sharma

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-05-26

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1137395443

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This book introduces the diverse practices of three non-canonical practitioners: David MacDougall, Desire Machine Collective and Kumar Shahani. It offers analysis of their documentary methods and aesthetics, exploring how their oeuvres constitute a critical and self-reflexive approach to documentary-making in India.

Visions of Development
Visions of Development

Author: Peter Sutoris

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781849045711

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Visions of Development examines the Indian state's postcolonial development ideology between Independence in 1947 and the Emergency of 1975-77. Sutoris pioneers a novel methodology for the study of development thought and its cinematic representations, analysing films made by the Films Division of India between 1948 and 1975. By comparing these documentaries to late-colonial films on 'progress', his book highlights continuities with and departures from colonial notions of development in modern India. It is the first scholarly volume to be published on the history of Indian documentary film. Of the approximately 250 documentaries analysed by Peter Sutoris, many of which have never been discussed in the existing literature, most are concerned with economic planning and industrialisation, large dams, family planning, schemes aimed at the integration of tribal peoples (Adivasis) into society, and civic education. Almost all films analysed in this volume are available for free online viewing through the website of the Films Division. Links are provided on the companion website www.visionsofdevelopment.com.

A Fly in the Curry
A Fly in the Curry

Author: K. P. Jayasankar

Publisher: Sage Publications Pvt. Limited

Published: 2015-11-29

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9789353881597

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An engaging read on independent documentary filmmaking in India

The Inconvenient Indian
The Inconvenient Indian

Author: Thomas King

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2013-09-01

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1452940304

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In The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian–White relations in North America since initial contact. Ranging freely across the centuries and the Canada–U.S. border, King debunks fabricated stories of Indian savagery and White heroism, takes an oblique look at Indians (and cowboys) in film and popular culture, wrestles with the history of Native American resistance and his own experiences as a Native rights activist, and articulates a profound, revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands. Suffused with wit, anger, perception, and wisdom, The Inconvenient Indian is at once an engaging chronicle and a devastating subversion of history, insightfully distilling what it means to be “Indian” in North America. It is a critical and personal meditation that sees Native American history not as a straight line but rather as a circle in which the same absurd, tragic dynamics are played out over and over again. At the heart of the dysfunctional relationship between Indians and Whites, King writes, is land: “The issue has always been land.” With that insight, the history inflicted on the indigenous peoples of North America—broken treaties, forced removals, genocidal violence, and racist stereotypes—sharpens into focus. Both timeless and timely, The Inconvenient Indian ultimately rejects the pessimism and cynicism with which Natives and Whites regard one another to chart a new and just way forward for Indians and non-Indians alike.

Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia
Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia

Author: Ian Aitken

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1474407226

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Based on rare archival documents and films, this anthology is the first to focus primarily on the use of official and colonial documentary films in the South and South-East Asian regions. Drawing together a range of international scholars, the book sheds new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in the colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial period. Covering diverse geographical and colonial contexts in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong, and focusing on under-researched or little-known films, it demonstrate the complex set of relations between the colonisers and the colonised throughout the region.

So Many Cinemas
So Many Cinemas

Author: Bhagwan Das Garga

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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`So Many Cinemas` Is A Kaleidoscopic And Captivating Overview Of The History Of Cinema In India, Authored By The Eminent Documentary Film Maker, B D Garga, Who Is Reputed As A Pioneering Historian And Commentator Of Indian Films. The Book Has A Comprehensively Researched Text Of Over A Hundred Thousand Words, Enhanced By Touches Of Satire And Humour. It Is Sumptuously Illustrated With Over 400 Rare Photographs, Working Stills, Post Cards, Advertisements, Film Booklets And Other Film Memorabilia, Most Of Which Are From The Author`S Enviable Personal Collection.

From Raj to Swaraj
From Raj to Swaraj

Author: Bhagwan Das Garga

Publisher: Penguin India

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9780670081189

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The Screening Of Six Films Of The Lumiere Brothers At Watson S Hotel, Bombay, On 7 July 1896 Marked The Beginning Of India S Engagement With The Moving Picture. It Also Laid The Foundation Of A Remarkable Body Of Non-Fiction Cinematic Work. B.D. Garga S From Raj To Swaraj: The Non-Fiction Film In India Traces The Century-Old History Of Newsreels And Documentaries In The Country. Beginning With An Account Of The Early Works Of People Like Hiralal Sen, J.F. Madan And Harishchandra Bhatwadekar Who Pioneered The Newsreel, Garga Goes On To Describe What Were Among The First Non-Fiction Films Jyotish Sarkar S Coverage Of The Anti-Partition Demonstration In Calcutta, 1905, And Charles Urban S Spectacular Film On The 1911 Delhi Durbar. Garga Also Chronicles The Landmark Events In The Development Of Non-Fiction Films In India: The Propaganda Films During The First And Second World Wars, The Passing Of The Cinematograph Act In 1918 And The Establishment Of The Censor Board, Lowell Thomas S Journey Across The Country To Film Romantic India, Louis De Rochemont S Controversial Coverage Of Police Repression In 1930, The Series Of The March Of Time Films On India, The Founding Of The Film Advisory Board And The Pioneering Efforts Of The Information Films Of India, And The Extraordinary Coverage Of Communal Riots During The Partition In 1947. Post-Independence, The Author Throws Light On The Role Of The Films Division And On The Work Of Mohan Bhavnani, Jean Bhownagary And Paul Zils, Who Created A Sound Base For Future Film-Makers. He Also Looks At The Powerful Body Of Works By Women Directors Like Suhasini Mulay, Deepa Dhanraj And Sumitra Bhave, Among Others, Which Courageously Addresses A Number Of Contentious Social And Political Issues. Critically Examining The Factors That Have Stunted The Development Of Documentaries In The Country, Garga Lauds The Efforts Of Film-Makers Like Anand Patwardhan To Keep The Movement Going In The Face Of Myriad Distribution, Logistical And Financial Hurdles. A Ground-Breaking Study By One Of India S Most Respected Film Historians, From Raj To Swaraj Not Only Explodes Many Existing Myths But Also Reveals Astonishing New Details About A Genre Of Films That Has Been Overshadowed By The Razzmatazz Surrounding Its More Glamorous Counterpart, The Masala Fiction Film.

Where Histories Reside
Where Histories Reside

Author: Priya Jaikumar

Publisher: Duke University Press Books

Published: 2019-10-09

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781478004752

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In Where Histories Reside Priya Jaikumar examines eight decades of films shot on location in India to show how attending to filmed space reveals alternative timelines and histories of cinema. In this bold “spatial” film historiography, Jaikumar outlines factors that shape India's filmed space, from state bureaucracies and commercial infrastructures to aesthetic styles and neoliberal policies. Whether discussing how educational shorts from Britain and India transform natural landscapes into instructional lessons or how Jean Renoir’s The River (1951) presents a universal human condition through the particularities of place, Jaikumar demonstrates that the history of filming a location has always been a history of competing assumptions, experiences, practices, and representational regimes. In so doing, she reveals that addressing the persistent question of “what is cinema?” must account for an aesthetics and politics of space.