A film traces the advent of modern buildings in India
A still from the film
How did the living spaces of India change after independence? How was the modern Indian nation created? The documentary Nostalgia for the Future, to be screened in the city today, seeks to answer these questions and more. The documentary has been directed by filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore and architect Rohan Shivkumar and produced by Films Division of India.
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Shivkumar explains that the film explores architecture and modernity in India, over a period of more than a century and how it reflected in the modern home. "The film focuses on four distinct imaginations of homes for the modern Indian nation," he says.
These four imaginations are the Lukshmi Vilas Palace at Vadodara, a gigantic palace built for a progressive, benevolent monarch in the late 19th century; the Villa Shodhan in Ahmedabad, a private residence designed by Le Corbusier; the Sabarmati Ashram where the Gandhian aspirations of the nation-state can be seen; and public housing in post-independence Delhi designed by the Indian government to house refugees from Pakistan and the bureaucrats of the newly independent nation. "Baroda, Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Ahmedabad are the cities we cover in the film," Shivakumar says.
Kishore explains that to portray the phase of the nation when it was trying to reinvent itself, the film explores various formats: digital video, 16mm film and archival footage from mainstream cinema and state propaganda. "It was fantastic to reconstruct all this to see the process which led to what we have today," he signs off.
ON: Today, 5 pm
AT: Godrej India Culture Lab, Godrej One, Pirojshanagar, Vikhroli (E).
CALL: 25188010
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