Rewriting the Rules
Pioneering Indian Cinema after 1970
A season of films from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, when filmmakers rewrote the traditional rules of what constituted Indian cinema.
Responding to shifting social and political circumstances, they made work that was socially relevant and politically committed, and that represented and gave agency to themes, narratives and groups who had often been rendered invisible or marginalised on screen.
Many also broke the rules when it came to aesthetic choices, opting for a creative hybridity and experimentation that fused together aspects of Indian art and culture with broader international styles.
A key moment was the birth of Indian Parallel Cinema, one of South Asia’s first post-colonial film movements. But this rethinking of traditional rules was not exclusive to arthouse films; it also seeped into the narratives of populist cinema.
This season samples a cross-section of this filmmaking, across documentary, narrative and experimental film.
Ticket prices
Students £11
Unwaged £11
Over 60s £11
Under 18s £6
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Booking fees
£1.50 booking fee per online/phone transaction.
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Curator
Dr Omar Ahmed is a UK based film scholar with a PhD from the University of Manchester. He is also a writer and international curator of South Asian Cinema. He has published widely Indian Cinema. He co-curates the annual ‘Not Just Bollywood’ season for HOME, Manchester which he founded in 2017. Recent film curation projects have included a strand on Parallel Cinema for ‘Il Cinema Ritrovato’ (Bologna, 2021). His new book The Revolution of Indian Parallel Cinema in the Global South (1968–1995): From Feminism to Iconoclasm will be published by Bloomsbury in 2025. He is the curator of this season.
"The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 is a landmark exhibition, aiming to introduce audiences to previously unseen artworks from a polarizing era. This critical period coincides with the emergence of Indian Parallel Cinema, South Asia’s first post-colonial art film movement, which spanned four decades beginning in the late 1960s. I am excited to have curated a selection of Indian films that exemplify the creative innovation of these decades. These films showcase new filmmaking techniques, aesthetics, and on-screen representations that redefined Indian cinema. All of the films in the programme complement and enrich the exhibition, pointing to a broader modern visual lexicon that was potentially at work, and which challenged the status quo in India and beyond. Many of these films have rarely been screened in the UK, making this programme significant in introducing audiences to the rich and diverse landscape of Indian cinema during this period of great change." - Dr Omar Ahmed
Events
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Art 1975–1998
