Studies in South Asian Film & Media - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2018

This article will examine the emergence of independent platforms to screen radical and alternative cinema in India by tracing two case-studies: Experimenta, a biannual festival curated by Shai Heredia, and The New Medium section curated by Shaina Anand. While Experimenta has remained largely independent, relying on the support of established artists and cultural organizations, The New Medium section has managed to secure its place within the programme of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival (MFF). Although their approach may differ, both curators are committed to promoting a culture of moving image experimentation in the country. Drawing on first-hand observations, interviews and scrutinizing festival ephemera, this article aims to identify the curatorial practices and strategies that have established these alternative film festivals both within the international film festival network and the larger film community in the country.

This article reflects on the contemporary digital turn that has transformed our audio-visual experiences fundamentally, and has affected mainstream control over production and circulation of data. Clearly, such conditions have reinvented the problematical relation between producer and receiver. In relation to such circumstances, the article focuses on marginal film festivals, especially the TENT 'Little Cinema International Festival' for experimental films and new media-art, held in Kolkata, India, since 2014. 'Little Cinema International Festival', on one hand, showcases international packages such as those from Berlinale; on the other hand, it presents curated programmes comprising videos made by first-time filmmakers from India. The article deliberates on the broad and long drawn contexts of 'festivals' and artistic endeavours, as well as the formal contours of the videos, which generate spaces for dialogues, both within the filmic text, and in the milieus in which these are shown. The emphasis on the thriving 'amateur' practice also draws attention to 'Little Magazine', 'Little Theatre' and 'Little Film' practices in West Bengal, as well as contemporary new-media transactions, which has transmediated into newer modes of articulations.

Time and space are two dimensions that define a film festival in relation to duration, cultural, social, urban and political relations to the event. While the notion of space is well documented by the literature on film festivals, the idea of time is merely connected to the length of the event, mostly defined as volatile in nature. The overall aim of this article is to present an understanding of film festivals as multifaceted sociocultural and historical events beyond the idea of volatility that is naturally conferred to them. The idea of diverse intersecting temporalities is explored in this article by observing curated units of a festival – commemorative events – as loci to uncover the distinctive connotations of a changing nation. Time in film festival is discussed here not only as a dimension defining the length of the event, but also as an active element able to present history, moments of remembrance and renegotiate and contextualize current political and social instances. Hence, it is argued that festivals can be considered within the broad debate of archive a counter-archive, in which history and documents (the films) become channels to reassess the everyday social life of India, and shape a renovated image of the nation.

This article elaborates on the discursive role and mediations of local contexts in non-fiction film festivals that are organised in small-town settings in India. It argues that apart from the ideological imperative of forging an alternative discourse, local film festivals that are focused on non-fiction films and documentary cinema are also instrumental in producing an exuberant spatiality for re-articulating resistance as a function of filmmaking. Although this corresponds with the practices of Third Cinema of the 1970s, the temporality of the 2000s has provided a newfound relevance for locality, and its social spatial dimensions. The article develops this argument by undertaking a detailed case analysis of the Ankur Film Festival, conducted in Nashik since 2012. Identifying the numerous negotiations embedded in the trajectory of the film festival, the article also conceptualises a festival mode of cinema for contemporary social conditions.