Politics of Form

A film’s politics is reflected in its visual form, narrative structure and production process. This program attempts to investigate how filmmaking combines with political radicalism to promote new ideologies that contribute to a new world order, thus enacting a politics of form.

Reflecting on one of independent India’s darkest periods in history, these two contrasting films expose the complex politics of socialist India, offering a historical context towards understanding the India of today – a country where open, intellectual and artistic spaces are diminishing and individual freedoms are being curtailed in the name of globalisation, development and nationalism.

How do we as artists, filmmakers and cultural workers in India use our practice to negotiate and respond to the right wing fundamentalist forces in power today? How do we uphold our right to dissent and continue to freely make art that performs a political role within a crisis of democracy and civil society? Ultimately, what is the role of avant garde art and cinema during times of political unrest, and how can we develop new forms of resistance through cinema as we go forward.