People and Documentary

Abstract

What does the nature of social associations between documentary filmmakers and documentary participants reveal about the social relations imagined and constructed by the practice of independent Indian documentary. Particularly in the industrial and social context of the NGO-dominated production and distribution environments where governmentality produces specific subject relations and discourses of subject positions (donor, recipient, client, expert), these relationships function as a lens to bring into focus the re-organisational scope of independent documentary practice and its potential to challenge socially assigned identities, relations, functions and thus social relations. In the practice and works of the filmmakers examined, alternate grounds of “interdependent filmmaking” are noticeable, often formed between socially disparate groups by means of reorganised processes such as “negotiated consent”. When projected alongside broader historical practices of documentary, the relationships point towards “interdependent filmmaking” predicated upon horizontal linkages between filmmakers, individuals and communities.