ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a global perspective on understanding the state-cinema relationship and the desire for an alternative cinema. This is done to historically and analytically place the New Indian Cinema and the FFC in world film histories. The two events in India, as the chapter argues, were inspired and affected by a global film culture, and various states embracing cinema to build a modern nation-state and its citizens. It includes a comprehensive discussion of scholarly work done so far on Indian cinema, state and culture, institutions and policy studies, the economic and industrial aspects of Indian cinema, and finally the FFC/NFDC and the New Indian Cinema. This section in the chapter makes a critique of the one-dimensional, state-centric understanding of the Indian New Cinema movement and the formation of the FFC. The chapter argues in support of studying the alternative cinema movement with the help of critical cultural policy studies and an empirical historical analysis, bringing in voices from government archives to those of the common film viewer.
