India’s Leading Documentary Filmmaker Comes to The New School
For over four decades, Anand Patwardhan’s investigative documentaries have charted life in modern India. Patwardhan’s films, which have many times come under threat of official censorship, have explored the nation’s economic development, the power of nationalism and religious fundamentalism, and the struggles by the poor and the marginalized for justice. On Wednesday March 13 at 6:00 p.m. the India China Institute and the School of Media Studies at The New School will present a conversation with Patwardhan and a screening of his award-winning documentary, Jai Bhim Comrade.
Jai Bhim Comrade is a filmic exploration of the traditions, contradictions and intractable injustices of India’s caste system. Shot over 14 years, Jai Bhim Comrade follows the poetry and music of people like the poet Vilas Ghogre to shine light on a subaltern tradition of reason that from the days of the Buddha, has fought superstition and religious bigotry. The film has been praised in The Guardian as an examination of “an epic subject, and in Patwardhan’s hands, it receives epic form”
The free screening in Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor, will be followed by a conversation chaired by Nidhi Srinivas, associate professor of Nonprofit Management at Milano, The New School with Sumita Chakravarty, associate professor of Culture and Media, The New School, and Toral Gajarawala, assistant professor of English at NYU, and an expert on Dalit issues, serving as discussants.