ABSTRACT
The twenty-first century has signalled the explosion of documentary film practices in India. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2009, this article analyses contemporary documentary film festivals in India conceived as a combination of cultural performance and cultural activism. Through a combination of first person experience in the field and historical research, it argues for identifying a legacy of contemporary documentary film festivals not only in the most recent history of political activism and filmmaking, but also in early cinematic practices of film exhibition during the colonial period of the Indian subcontinent - that is, when documentary films were part of an already existing public entertainment.
