What is it?
The official film production house of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting founded in 1948, which has produced over 8,000 feature and short length documentaries and animation films till date. The infrastructure for the establishment was set up by the British and was handed over to the Indian government upon independence.
What are its films about?
Themes
The original purpose of the Films Division was to enlighten the common folk culturally, inform them about the government’s activities and, in effect, fashion ideal citizens out of them. Cumulatively these films could be seen as helping forge a national identity. Although the early films were entirely reverent of the Nehruvian regime, the works of the 1960s, arguably the richest period for Films Division, evidenced voices of subversion and dissent rebelling against the reductionism and subservience of the establishment. These ambitious, bold films tried to get to the heart of a young nation and capture in spirit the forces that made it throb.
Style
Since its chief aim was propaganda, an array of documentary techniques marked the institution’s early output: explanatory voiceovers with the image reinforcing the spoken words, functional editing and framing styles and a rational narrative structure. Alongside such a pedagogical aim was, nevertheless, a vein of experimentation which attempted to develop a range of cinematic expressions and explore the breadth of film form. The most experimental of these filmmakers employed heady camera movements, rapid and dialectical edits, a disharmonic sound palette and, most importantly, reused footage from the Films Division archive.
Why is it of interest?
The Films Division was the most important means after the All India Radio and the sole visual mass medium that the fledgling Indian government had to propagate its vision among the people. Though it was relegated to the sidelines with the foundation of Doordarshan, the best output of Films Division is stark evidence to the remarkable creativity and the resourcefulness of the directors working within the institution.
Where to discover it?
Pramod Pati’s Explorer (1968) is one of the most explosive of works made at the Films Division in the way it concocts from a vast range of international influences, an enrapturing, polymorphous film that gives form to the various polarities at work in the Indian society and psyche. Science, religion, art and pop culture are all comfortable bedfellows in this super-formalist film.
