Assistant Professor
Mumbai Campus,
Centre for Critical Media Praxis,
School of Media and Cultural Studies
Qualification
M.A. (Arts & Aesthetics), JNU,
M.Phil. (Cinema Studies),
PGDMC (Journalism), SIMC, Pune,
Ph.D, JNU
Contact
harmanpreet.kaur[at]tiss[dot]ac[dot]in
I earned my PhD in Cinema Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi and my doctoral research analyses and charts the journey of alternative films in India from their aesthetics to infrastructures of production, distribution and exhibition from 2007-2019.
I have previously worked in the Films team at LXL Ideas (Mumbai) on nineteen short-fiction films for children including three National Award winning films (Best Friends Forever, The Waterfall, Little Magician), Researcher for the Centre for Indian Visual Culture (New Delhi), Osian's Cinefan Film Festival (New Delhi), Assistant Producer with CNBC-TV18 (Mumbai) and Senior Correspondent with CNN-IBN (New Delhi).
Alternative Cinemas, Art Cinemas, Independent Cinemas, Cinephilia, Film Festivals, Media Industries, Transnationalism, Visual Cultures, Gender and Cinema, Migration and Diaspora
Journals
1. 'Precarious Lives in Ivan Ayr’s Soni (2018) and Milestone (2020)' in South Asian Popular Culture, Routledge (forthcoming)
1. Co-Investigator: Connecting Creative Industries and Cultural Heritage: India-UK Film Festival Federation, Youth Curation and Community Co-creation, 2024-27
Funded by: UKRI Art and Humanities Research Council
Principal Investigator (Dr. Ashvin Devasundaram, Queen Mary University of London)
2. “Lights, Camera, and Time for Action”: Recasting Gender Equality Compliant Hindi Cinema (2021-23)
Funded by: U.S Consulate, Mumbai
Sub project:
Scripting Change: Women Screenwriters in Contemporary Hindi Cinema
This research project engaged with the role of women screenwriters in the Hindi Film industry. Screenplay and dialogue writers have often been overlooked in India, not just in terms of visibility in a film’s marketing and publicity or media interest but also by the industry where the labour of writing a script has often not been given its due. Within the contemporary period, Hindi cinema has witnessed several women screenplay writers emerge telling stories with a renewed focus on questions of gender roles in society. The study engaged with screenwriters, their craft and process of writing as well as their position within a largely male-dominated industry and the pressures they face therein regarding conformity.