Histories and Cultures: Space, Filmmaker, Text and Spectator

Beginning from 1980s onwards to the present day, this chapter examines diverse events including the formation of collectives, alternative film festivals, citizen-partnerships and other forms of democratic petitioning including public protest, to consider the importance of “relationality” or “bundles of relations” as the underpinning of independent documentary practice in India. Following three central concepts of documentary studies, the position of the filmmaker, the politics of textual representation and the position of the documentary spectator, I identify their context specific functioning. I trace the conceptualisation of “documentary filmmaker” formed in dialogue with the values of Third Cinema, the feminist “documentary text” that critiques media representation and ideologies, and finally, the problematizing of “documentary spectator” evident in the methods of participatory video producers