Artist Cinema from Vietnam

BACKGROUND:Artist Cinema from Vietnam is a curated collection of eight experimental and non-fiction short and feature length films that mobilise cinema to the work of constructing deimperialised trans-Asia moving image and visual cultures. Drawing on framework of "Asia as method" the programme identifies that imperialism "exercises its power not simply through an imposition of force from the outside, but also from within" (Chen 2010, 165). It mobilises "comparative research" as a rubric to investigate films that emerge from practices, vocabularies and solidarities located outside institutional structures in resistance to cultural and institutional regulation (Niranjana 2013). Hence, permeating the films are crucial issues pertaining to industrialisation, urbanization, gender identity, citizenship, and representation reflecting positions alternative to historical nationalist ideologies as well as Eurocentric knowledge bodies. CONTRIBUTION:My curation focuses on two questions: (i) identification of Vietnam based independent (non-state affiliated) filmmakers whose cinematic techniques and vocabulary construct resistance in a context of strict cultural regulation (ii) Creating spaces of translation between the programme and "locale", specifically Left wing political histories and cultures of Kerala, the Biennale's location. How might place transpire as a symbolic network of practices, histories and theories within which the films are viewed and interpreted? SIGNIFICANCE: Artist Cinema is commissioned as a core programme of South Asia's largest contemporary art event, Kochi Muziris Biennale with a footfall of nearly 4,00,000 in 2012. Nurturing critical encounters with cinema, a curator statement, pre and post screening statements, and Q and A are key discursive tools. Impact includes two national level media reports and a long form feature article in India's leading daily, The Hindu (f.1889) together with a live audience of nearly 50-60 at each screening.