South Asian Cinema and VOD Network

The Video Online Distribution in South Asia network aims to facilitate collaborative, interdisciplinary research on the impact of video online distribution (VOD) on the content and aesthetics of South Asian independent films. Existing research on VOD is sponsored either by the companies themselves or by public advisory agencies. Most examines VOD as an industrial complex, paying little or no attention to films’ content and aesthetics. It documents the extent to which VOD defines the limits within which independent filmmakers work. Unlike existing research, this network focuses on how filmmakers move within those limits and how this, in turn, shapes the films they make. These conditions demarcate independent cinema and, with it, imaginings of South Asian identities. There are 14 network members: scholars, film directors, producers and programmers working in/on the cinema of each South Asian country