Documentary Films in India Critical Aesthetics at Work

This book introduces the diverse practices of documentary films in India. It examines the oeuvres of three non-canonical practitioners: ethnographic filmmaker, David MacDougall; northeast India-based moving-image artists group, Desire Machine Collective; and avant-garde filmmaker and cinema philosopher, Kumar Shahani. Sharma offers in-depth analysis of these practitioners' distinct documentary methods and aesthetics, exploring how their oeuvres constitute a critical and self-reflexive approach to documentary-making in India.

Aparna Sharma is a documentary practitioner and scholar. Her documentaries take up cultural narratives combining techniques of ethnographic and montage film. She is also interested in collaborating with dance and performance artists to create performance and documentary dialogues. As a scholar she is committed to writing about cinema practices that fall outside mainstream cinema. She teaches video practice, combining film and cultural theory, at UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance.

List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I
1. Constructing the Self, Constructing Others
2. New Boys at the Doon School
3. Gandhi's Children
PART II
4. An Arrested Eye: Trauma and Becoming in Desire Machine Collective's Documentary Installations
5. Passage
6. Residue
PART III
7. A Turn Towards the Classical: The Documentaries of Kumar Shahani
8. The Bamboo Flute
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index