As a PhD candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Rakesh Sengupta researched early Indian cinema. His essay 'Writing from the Margins of Media: Screenwriting Practice and Discourse During the First Indian Talkies', published in the Dec 2018 issue of Bioscope [no. 9.2] won the Best Journal Article by Screenwriting Research Network and also received High Commendation for Screen's Annette Kuhn Debut Essay Prize. On today's episode, we talk about the way in which the lack of script archives dictated the methods of research, how the vocation of screenwriting propelled fantasies of self-improvement and socioeconomic ascendancy in the 1930s and 1940s and the way in which the study of early cinema has been revitalised in the contemporary context of OTT and web programming. We also have some lovely anecdotes about serendipitous discoveries of forgotten Indian cinema scripts in other corners of the world.
Click here to access the Image+ Guide & view the material being discussed in the podcast: https://sites.google.com/view/artalaap-podcast-resources/episode-9.
Design & artwork: Mohini Mukherjee
Musical arrangement: Jayant Parashar
Additional support: Kanishka Sharma, Amy Goldstone-Sharma, Raghav Sagar, Shalmoli Halder, Arunima Nair
Audio courtesy: Vernouillet by Blue Dot Sessions [CC BY-NC 4.0]
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