Since its inception, Katha Centre for Film Studies (KCFS), a unit of Katha, Delhi, has actively involved young people from the city of Mumbai in its activities and film festivals. Besides organising regular screenings at educational and cultural institutions, KCFS has encouraged young minds to think about film, critically and carefiilly, and has created spaces where they can present films to a wider public. KCFS has been identified as a Nodal Centre for Film Curatorial Practice as part of the Curatorship programme. This grant enables Katha Centre for Film Studies to conduct three film curatorial practice workshops and three corresponding film festivals that will be curated by participants who have been trained during the workshops. In order to facilitate this process of film education, KCFS will also build a reference library for films and books and will host a website.

Over the last few years there have been measurable shifts in how films are produced, viewed and distributed, thus necessitating curatog'al engagement. This shifi has been brought about both through changes in the technological medium, as well as the binning of boundaries between the practice of visual art and film like in video art and video installation. Recognising the requirement for curatorial engagement in film presentation as well as the need to provide young curators the training and platform to present films in a manner that is rigorous, this initiative promises to open up spaces for critical reflection and debate on film curation.

KCFS will host annual three-day workshops, which will be conducted by film scholars, historians and curators from Mumbai and different parts of India. The workshops will engage with concepts and issues directly connected to the presentation of the moving image. Some of these topics will include critical understandings on cinema history; how to read a film; the history of film criticism; curatorial research methods; curatorial writing; the practical aspects of film curation; context specific curation; and the different ways of engaging with audiences. Through these workshops, KCFS hopes to equip young film enthusiasts and students with research, analytical and methodological tools and provide them with the infrastructural support needed for them to become curatorial practitioners. The aim is to empower the youth and validate their viewpoints, as well as equip them with specialised knowledge which they can share with larger audiences. It is hoped that this will, in turn, empower film audiences. These workshops will each be attended by 15 participants. The participants will be expected to pay a nominal fee to participate in the workshops so as to ensure a conscious level of engagement.

As a corollary to the workshops, KCFS will conduct an annual five-day film festival in Mumbai which will show approximately 20 films, including features, shorts and documentaries. The film programmes will be curated by the young men and women who have been trained during the workshops. The film festivals will emphasise that films must be presented within the social, political, cultural and aesthetic histories and contexts from which the films emerge. This will be done through writing analytical and wellresearched articles about the films shown, which are then shared with the audience. These festivals will also allow young people to encounter curators of their generation so that they are encouraged and empowered in the process. Also, the film experts or filmmakers in attendance will be exposed to fresh, new thinking on films by the new generation.

The workshops and film festivals will be held in Mumbai, the filmmaking capital of India. Recognising this, KCFS will consciously engage the mainstream and the 1 independent sectors of the film industry, while simultaneously addressing the recent surge of activity with the moving image (both film and video) in the visual art context. Filmmakers, artists, critics, cinephiles and an audience that is immersed in both the production and exhibition of the moving image will be the target constituency for all KCFS activities.

In order to facilitate a critical process of film education, KCFS will create a reference library for films and books and will host a website, which will be regularly updated to offer open access to the information and ideas developed during the workshops and festivals. As a Nodal Centre for Film Curatorial Practice, KCFS promises to investigate spectatorship and the complex nature of the moving image in contemporary times—from the single screen to multiple screens, the cinema to the gallery, the television screen to the computer screen.

 

This description is part of the institutional records created by IFA at the onset of the grant. The project may have changed in due course as reflected in the deliverables from the Grantee.