If anyone comes across the movies directed by documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, they can easily identify with the film which portrays the condition of their society.
The reason behind this is, all the films of Patwardhan have the voiceless, marginalised and exploited. His films move the society to new levels, said Dr Vijay Devadas, Head, Department of Media, Film and Communication, University of Otago, New Zealand on Wednesday here.
Dr Vijay Devadas who is also the editor of the international journal ‘Borderlands,’ has been invited to make a presentation on the theme, ‘Toward a New Commons: Hardt, Negri and the Political Documentaries of Anand Patwardhan’ in the ‘Media and Society Seminar Series 2013-14’ organised by Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Madras.
He is the Associate Director of the New Zealand Indian Research Institute and founding member of the Postcolonial Studies Research Network, University of Otago. He is currently engaged in a project titled ‘Cultivating Futures: The social life of youths in Chennai.’
While speaking, Vijay Devadas said, “The major challenges posed by Patwardhan’s films are about who can write a society’s historiography and the method of writing history.”
Anand Patwardhan is a noted documentary filmmaker who grabbed attention of many through his films such as In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy war, War and Peace and Jai Bhim Comrade among others.
Quoting a part of the book Empire, Vijay Devadas concluded that, “The commonwealth of the material world – air, fruits of the soil and all nature’s bounty, what classic European political texts quoted as ‘inheritance of humanity’ are to be shared together. Thereby the idea of ‘new commons’ will act as a counter to the forces of globalisation.”