The slum has been a visual force in a number of city films from across the world. The use of certain geographical locations and popular discourses about crime and poverty have given shape to a diverse range of images that are at once powerful, mythic and disturbing. This event, which will kick off a two-day conference on “Slums: New Visions for an Enduring Global Phenomenon,” will explore the perceptions that have fuelled the imagination of the cinematic slum.
Mazumdar will be joined on stage by Janice Perlman, President, The Mega-Cities Project and Brodwyn Fisher, Professor of Latin American History, University of Chicago. Their conversation will be moderated by George ‘Mac’ McCarthy, President and CEO, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Ranjani Mazumdar is Professor of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her publications focus on urban cultures, popular cinema, gender and the cinematic city. She is the author of Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City (2007) and co-editor with Neepa Majumdar of the forthcoming Wiley Blackwell Companion to Indian Cinema. She has also worked as a documentary filmmaker and her productions include Delhi Diary 2001 and The Power of the Image (Co-Directed). Her current research focuses on globalization and film culture, and the intersection of technology, travel, design and colour in 1960s Bombay Cinema.
