The history of experimental film in India is tied to the history of India’s quest for modernity and is particularly visible in the experimental films on science and technology produced by the Films Division of India during the cultural revolution of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister was committed to building modern temples i.e., industry powered by science & technology, which he believed would propel Indians towards a Soviet style trajectory of building a socialist utopia. Nehru was confident that science and technology would solve numerous social problems and regenerate a tradition-bound Indian society. Under his leadership, the government established the Indian Institutes of Science, Indian Space Research Organisation, Indian Institutes of Technology, multiple research centres, Universities and cultural institutions across the country. These institutions were expected to be risk taking, experimental, and critical.
This program will showcase a selection of these avant-garde state supported films that reflect the radical values, perspectives and ideas that shaped the vision of Indian democracy. These films remind us of the complexity of early post-colonial Indian modernism as was illustrated in scientist Homi Bhabha’s legendary statement, “It is true that India neither produced the motorcar, the refrigerator, the airplane. Nor did it manufacture these in the overwhelming quantities of other industrialized countries. But for hundreds of years when the Indian peasant did not have to work, he sat in the shade of a tree and thought. He thought the philosophy of truth in life, and he thought as an artist in action. – Shai Heredia
Curated by Shai Heredia.
Discussion moderated by Aparna Sharma.
SCREENING
Explorer
Pramod Pati
India, 1968, digital transfer, b&w, sound, 7:03
An experimental short which daringly uses rapid cutting, dissonant noises, intercut negatives etc. to capture the tensions the urban youth of India experienced following the turmoil of the ’60s.
This Bit of That India
S.N.S Sastry
India, 1972, digital transfer, b&w, sound, 19:54
A layered reflection on youth culture, diversity, progress, education, technology and sexuality. The film juxtaposes documentary moments that celebrate individual freedom with a theatrical performance of Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, as a metaphor for repression and conformity. -25FPS Festival
Space and India
Vijay B Chandra
India, 1971 digital transfer, color, sound, 21 minutes
Space and India is both an informational documentary about the India space programme and astronomy and an authorial, visionary kaleidoscope of space scientists, the landscapes produced by cosmic science of architectural scale instruments and the societal imaginary of science. -Creative Encounters With Science and Technology
Transcendence
K.Vishwanath
India, 1972, digital transfer, color, sound, 20:36
A film on Auroville. Auroville is an international city on the outskirts of Pondicherry, evolving a new way of life transcending the past and the present in search of true answer to the inner questions of man.
Shai Heredia is a filmmaker, curator, and founding director of Experimenta, the moving image art biennial of India. She has curated film programs and exhibitions worldwide including the Berlin International FilmFestival, Tate Modern in London, and she was the programmer of the 65th Robert Flaherty Seminar. Heredia has co-directed I Am Micro (2012) and An Old Dog’s Diary (2015) with Shumona Goel. Both films have exhibited at prestigious film festivals and art venues internationally and won awards including a National Film Award and a BFI London Film Festival award. Heredia has contributed to journals such as The Moving Image Review and Art Journal and PUBLIC and was the co- editor of the Loud Mess issue of NANG magazine. Her latest book “One Film at a Time” has been published by Arsenal Institut for Film and Video Art. Heredia is currently the co-curator of Berlinale Forum Expanded. She is based in Bangalore, India where she teaches film and contemporary art practice at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology.
Aparna Sharma is a filmmaker and film scholar. She primarily works in India’s northeastern region, documenting cultural heritage and material culture practices. In the state of Assam, she has developed two films: Kamakha: Through Prayerful Eyes (2012, Berkeley Media LLC) and Mihin Sutta, Mihin Jibon (The Women Weavers of Assam, 2019, Royal Anthropological Institute). As a film scholar she is committed to writing about non-mainstream cinema practices with an emphasis on documentary films. Her book-length study, Documentary Films in India: Critical Aesthetics at Work examines non-canonical documentary practices from India (2015). She has previously written on India-Pakistan ties through documentary and the representation of women in Indian cinema.
Aparna Sharma is also interested in studying and making experimental films. Most recently, in 2021 she developed Still Light, a film entirely shot and edited on a mobile phone. This multi-award winning film examines how light impacts our perception of place.
Presently she is developing a book length study based on oral histories with women from northeast India. The book examines the work women undertake to intervene in and uphold the cultural and historical legacies of the communities to which they belong. She is also studying the history of photography in northeast India with a practice-based component to develop sustainable media archives for the region.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and serves on the editorial boards of journals including Visual Anthropology, Media Practice and Education and Lensopticon. She works as Associate Professor at the Dept. of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, UCLA.