Open AccessStructuring the Counter-Discourses in Anand Patwardhan’s Documentary Oeuvre
Author(s) -
Bhawna Vij Arora
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
smart moves journal ijellh
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2582-4406
pISSN - 2582-3574
DOI - 10.24113/ijellh.v7i11.10106
Subject(s) - film director , movie theater , filmmaking , narrative , politics , historiography , media studies , indigenous , sociology , history , aesthetics , gender studies , political science , literature , law , art history , art , ecology , biology
Anand Patwardhan’s documentary oeuvre has established itself as a resistance cinema of the Third-World, drawing influences from the Latin-American cinematic practices as against the agit-prop of 1907 Russian revolutionary tradition as well as the American and Grierson tradition of filmmaking. In India, while the revisionary historiography fills in these lacunas of providing multiple narratives and voices to the disparate growth story of the nation, independent political documentaries (IDP) and especially Patwardhan’s work provide an inevitable visual-dimension to such narratives of growth and development, functioning as crucial sources of intervention to history and cinema both. His documentary projects have well-spoken against the indigenous fundamentalism, sectarian and communal antagonism, casteism and religious riots and has been touted as a critical whistleblower to the miscellaneous malpractices in government institutions. Despite being rejected, censored and having being faced other obstacles form the monopolized CBFC and Film Division, apart from the independent wrath of belligerent forces and cultural diktats, Patwardhan has been an unstoppable and controversial filmmaker.