The project of Indian art cinema began in the years following independence in 1947, at once evoking the global reach of the term "art film" and speaking to the aspirations of the new nation-state. This episode is a conversation between an author and a historian who are both invested in the histories of cinema and the city, Kolkata in particular. Using ideas in the book Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures as a fulcrum, novelist, essayist, poet, and musician Amit Chaudhuri and Rochona Majumdar, Associate Professor, Departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago, discuss the role of art films in postcolonial public life.

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