About the talk

M K Raghavendra, Indian film and literary scholar, will talk about popular Indian cinema and the hidden messages and motifs used in these. Popular cinema by definition refers to films that are commercially successful and widely liked by the masses, often characterised by entertainment-focused elements, like melodrama, music, and moral messages. 

However, do these films also carry some other hidden messages that the director/​writer is trying to convey? Films often reflect the society in which they are made, and the talk will delve into those aspects of how popular cinema is embedded in the politics and society of the times. Raghavendra will touch upon movies, such as Sholay, which recently completed 50 years, among others.

Read article: When Cinema met Emergency.

The talk will be followed by a Q&A session with the speaker, moderated by Kamal Karamattathil, faculty member at Azim Premji University.

Hosted by IHA in collaboration with Azim Premji University

About the speaker

M K Raghavendra is an Indian film and literary scholar, theorist, critic and writer who has, till 2023, authored eleven volumes on cinema, including two anthologies that he edited, a book on literature and one on politics.

He has contributed to numerous newspapers and periodicals in India and abroad, including The Caravan, Economic and Political Weekly, Outlook, Deccan Herald, The Hindu, Frontline, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Wire, Firstpost, The Book Review and The Indian Review of Books. His essays on film have been anthologised in books published by Oxford University Press, Sage, Bloomsbury, BFI and Routledge, among others.

He received Swarna Kamal, the National Award for Best Film Critic in 1997 and a two-year Homi Bhabha Fellowship. He is a former secretary of the Indian chapter of FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics, with its central office in Munich.

Read more at: https://​www​.mkraghaven​dra​.com/