Indian Cinema Beyond Bollywood

Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram is Lecturer in World Cinema at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of India’s New Independent Cinema: Rise of the Hybrid (Routledge, 2016). Ashvin was on the advisory panel for BFI India on Film – part of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017. He is Programming Adviser and Associate Director of the UK Asian Film Festival – London (UKAFF), former Creative Director and founder of the Edinburgh Asian Film Festival (EAFF) and a BBC Academy Expert Voice in Cultural Studies and Visual Arts. Apart from several publications, including the co-edited anthology South Asian Diasporic Cinema and Theatre: Re-visiting Screen and Stage in the New Millennium (Rawat Publications, 2017), Ashvin has delivered an array of international presentations and lectures. These include keynote speeches at the Cinema For All (British Federation of Film Societies) Community Cinema Conference 2017 and the Annual Dadasaheb Phalke Memorial Lecture 2015 in London. Ashvin directed the documentary film Movies, Memories, Magic (2018) charting the London-based South Asian diaspora’s memories of cinema.

"What is most appealing about this book is that it brings Independent Indian Cinema from the periphery to the centre of academic debates as it challenges patriarchal constructs, addresses and portrays hitherto hidden topics and gives a voice to the subaltern." – Bashabi Fraser, Edinburgh Napier University, UK"A pioneering, original and sophisticated volume that carves out new terrain in Indian film studies. It rescues independent cinema in South Asia--the 'indies'--from the condescension of academic scholarship, and shows how the phenomenon of Bollywood cannot be understood without engaging with its 'other'. A wide-ranging book that looks at the 'indie' revolution and the daring with which it engages sexuality, caste, and contemporary political violence in South Asia." --Dilip Menon, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

• Foreword: ROSIE THOMAS Introduction: New Independent Indian Cinema: Disciplinary Evolution and Cinematic Revolution ASHVIN I. DEVASUNDARAM Chapter 1: Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan: The Politics and Legacies of the New Wave Movement in Contemporary Indian Cinema ANUJA JAIN Chapter 2: From New Cinema to New Indie Cinema: The Story of NFDC and Film Bazaar SUDHA TIWARI Chapter 3: Breaking Curfew, Presenting Utopia: Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider Inside the National and International Legal Framework PRETI TANEJA Chapter 4: Queer Radiance: Margarita with a Straw, Disability and Vision AMY VILLAREJO Chapter 5: Indie Crowdfunded Narratives of Commercial Surrogacy, or the Contested Bodies of Neoliberalism: Onir’s "I Am Afia" and Arpita Kumar’s Sita ANA CRISTINA MENDES Chapter 6: Film Festivals as Cosmopolitan Assemblages: A Case Study in Diasporic Cocreation MONIA ACCIARI Chapter 7: Documentary as Witness; Documentary as Counter-Narrative: The Cinema of Sanjay Kak APARNA SHARMA Chapter 8: DiverCity: Independent Documentary as an Alternative Narrative of the City FAIZ ULLAH, ANJALI MONTEIRO AND K.P. JAYASANKAR Chapter 9: Zanjeer to Pink: The Trajectory of Amitabh Bachchan’s Angry Young/Old Man Persona from Mainstream to Indie Cinema SWARNAVEL ESWARAN Chapter 10: Rapping in Double Time: Gandu's Subversive Time of Liberation ASHVIN IMMANUEL DEVASUNDARAM Chapter 11: Sairat’s Transgressive Femininity: Quizzing Marathi Cinema AARTI WANI Chapter 12: Untold Stories, Representations and Contestations: Masaan (Crematorium) and Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love) SANGEETA DATTA Chapter 13: Haobam Paban Kumar and the Cinemas of North East India MEENAKSHI SHEDDE Chapter 14: The Subaltern Screams: Migrant Workers and the Police Station as Spatio-Carceral State of Exception in Tamil film Visaranai ASHVIN I. DEVASUNDARAM ContributorsIndex