Film festivals and the mediations of locality

Abstract This article elaborates on the discursive role and mediations of local contexts in non-fiction film festivals that are organised in small-town settings in India. It argues that apart from the ideological imperative of forging an alternative discourse, local film festivals that are focused on non-fiction films and documentary cinema are also instrumental in producing an exuberant spatiality for re-articulating resistance as a function of filmmaking. Although this corresponds with the practices of Third Cinema of the 1970s, the temporality of the 2000s has provided a newfound relevance for locality, and its social spatial dimensions. The article develops this argument by undertaking a detailed case analysis of the Ankur Film Festival, conducted in Nashik since 2012. Identifying the numerous negotiations embedded in the trajectory of the film festival, the article also conceptualises a festival mode of cinema for contemporary social conditions.