TEXTS

EXCAVATING INDIAN EXPERIMENTAL FILM
This ongoing research project aims to create an understanding of experimentation with film in India through interviews with filmmakers, critics, archivists and academics. By unearthing rarely seen avant garde and experimental works, this project looks to initiate discussion and critique on Indian experimental cinema, towards creating an environment that celebrates experimentation with the film form in India. Originally supported by a grant from Sarai Delhi.

Listed below are project related interviews and other readings:



Dadasaheb Phalke at work

AMRIT GANGAR is a Mumbai-based writer, film critic, historian and curator. He has co-authored…

ASHISH AVIKUNTHAK has been making self funded films on 16mm & 35mm for the past 10 years and…

SANJIV SHAH directed  the cult classic Hun Hunsi Hunsi Lal (1992), the story of Hunshilal…

ABID SURTI is a master of all trades. He has earned accolades within India and abroad as a…

NINA SHIVDASANI ROVSHEN In 1975 Nina Shivdasani Rovshen (aka Nina Sugati SR), made ‘Chhatrabhang’ – the first Indian…

FILM SOCIETIES: When Godard Rode the 17:05 Borivli Local – An Interview with Amrit Gangar on Screen Unit,  the film society he ran for over two decades in Mumbai.

‘Artists In Action’
Essay by Shai Heredia; first published in the catalogue of the “India: ‘Visions From The Outside'” programme, curated by Shanay Jhaveri at Cultuurcentrum Brugge (March/April 2012).

Cinema of Prayoga: Indian experimental film & video 1913-2006
Article by Tanya Singh for Vertigo Magazine

Experimenta India : curating and exhibiting experimental film, video and moving image in India
Essay by Anuja Jain; MARG Publications

Experimental Support Structures for Moving Images – Experimenta. The International Festival for Moving Image Art in India 2009, Bangalore
Article by Nicole Wolf in Afterall Online Journal

Building on a Prehistory: Artists Film and New Media
Writer & Curator Shanay Jhaveri’s blog posts on LUX online
https://lux.org.uk/writing/building-prehistory-artists-film-new-media-india-part-1
https://lux.org.uk/writing/building-prehistory-artists-film-new-media-india-part-3

Sarkari Shorts
short films from the vaults of the Films Division of India

Experimenta Festival Catalogues
Click on the links below to preview:

Experimenta 2004

Experimenta 2005

Experimenta 2006

Experimenta 2007

Experimenta 2011

Experimenta 2013

Experimenta 2015

Experimenta 2017

Experimenta 2023

PRESS

‘The Hope is About Friendship’ Payal Kapadia Interview
I Am Not Interested in Fetishizing the Form
What one can expect at the 24th IFFK
Genre-bending cinema at the Experimenta film festival in Bengaluru
Image conscious
Godard in the times of Netflix
Avant-garde from Asia
Sensorial theatre
Q&A | Shai Heredia
Crash course in Indian experimentalism: an interview with filmmaker Shai Heredia