Past Film/Video | Documentaries | Series & Festivals

The World Is Family

(Vasudhaiva kutumbakam, Anand Patwardhan, 2023)

Introduced by Amrutha Kunapulli, Ohio State Assistant Professor of Theater, Film, and Media Arts

Midwest Premiere

Info & Tickets

black and white image of a group of people dressed in traditional Indian garb.

Oct 21, 2024 4:00 PM

Film/Video Theater

Free for all audiences with ticket

ACCESSIBILITY
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The legendary Indian documentarian illustrates “the personal is political” with this rich film that tracks the intertwined histories of his family and India itself.

Anand Patwardhan is known for his brave documentaries that question his country’s dominant Hindu nationalist ideology. In The World Is Family (an old Sanskrit phrase), Patwardhan examines the memories of his family’s elders who had fought for India’s independence alongside Mahatma Gandhi. As Patwardhan learned about his family’s history, he began filming them with whatever equipment was at hand and soon all family gatherings became an exercise in oral history. A decade after his parents’ deaths, Patwardhan revisited the footage and found it a revelation. Today, self-confessed supremacists whose ideology once inspired Gandhi’s murder are in power. As they rewrite India’s history, memories of the past have become more precious than mere personal nostalgia. In Hindi with English subtitles. (96 mins., DCP)

See the complete Unorthodocs 2024 lineup.

IMAGE CAPTION
The World is Family, courtesy of the filmmaker.

"A deeply affecting, immensely powerful cinematic lamentation of lost stories and details."

Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

Review: “A Wistful Chronicle of Personal Politics Beginning in India’s Freedom Movement,” Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

About the speaker

Amrutha Kunapulli is a scholar of cinemas of India, with an emphasis on popular cinemas of south India. Having grown up in Tamil Nadu, India, with its obstinately commercial, yet unforgivingly political, film industry, her cinephilia and scholarship demonstrate a critical engagement with popular and commercial film industries, and their ability to reflect historical and cultural contexts. As such, her work is situated at the intersection of world cinema and popular cinema and includes engagements with stardom, fandom, digital media, popular culture, and cinemas of the global south. Kunapulli has published in Studies in World Cinema and South Asian Popular Culture, among other publications. Her forthcoming book, Worlding Tamil Cinema, studies the globalist tendencies of 21st century Tamil cinema and its position in the network of world cinema.

Tag(s)

Unorthodocs 2024 is part of the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial: backstories.

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
National Endowment for the Arts
Ohio Humanities

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Greater Columbus Arts Council 
The Wexner Family
Institute of Museum and Library Services 
Mellon Foundation
Every Page Foundation
Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts
CampusParc
Nationwide Foundation
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
The Columbus Foundation
Axium Packaging

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Ohio State Energy Partners
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection
David Crane and Elizabeth Dang
Melissa Gilliam and William Grobman
Rebecca Perry Damsen and Ben Towle