What is the cinema of a people in a state of perpetual movement? Do they stall for the camera, or must the camera accommodate their kinesis? How does a medium based in subtle shifts and gradual decay respond to a situation marked inherently by these phenomena? The fourth issue of Umbra covers and documents films that are constructed around the subject and thesis of ‘exile’ and removal: the protests at Jadavpur University, the 1992 riots, the films of Shinsuke Ogawa, and those of Shubhradeep Chakravorty.
In this Issue
Interview

An interview with Malay Roychowdhury, whose confessional poem was converted by two young Kolkata-based filmmakers into a film called 'Stark Electric Jesus'.

Commentary

Audience members comment on the films of Shubhradeep Chakravorty, screened during our retrospective of his films in Kolkata last year.

Review

A review of Surbhi Sharma's anthropological document, Bidesia in Bambai.

Essay

An essay on the films of Shinsuke Ogawa, whose films were shown in a near-complete retrospective in New Delhi, March 2015.

Conversation

A cinephile remembers the torrid early summer of 1992 and his journey through the bylanes of a burning city, with a VHS in his hand.

Reprint

A reproduction of Jawaharlal Nehru's Introduction from the official catalogue of the inaugural edition of IFFI, 1952.

Umbra 4 | 'Exile' | May 2015

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