Jump Cut: Lahore Cinema 1960s/2010s by Iftikhar Dadi
Talk
This presentation discusses the question of continuity and rupture in Pakistani cinema, by comparing two films: Susraal (1962) and Zinda Bhaag (2013). Both films are notable for marked sensitivity to their location in Lahore, and deal with desires and aspirations of non-elite everyday life. However, rather than both inhabiting a structure of continuity over five decades, the two films are separated by the temporal and thematic crisis of Pakistani cinema that began in 1980. This presentation analyzes how Zinda Bhaag (2013) attempts to overcome this dilemma through innovative cinematic form.
Iftikhar Dadi is Professor of the Department of History of Art and Director of the South Asia Program at Cornell University. Publications include Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia (2010), the edited volume Anwar Jalal Shemza (2015), the co-edited catalogue Lines of Control (2012), and the co-edited reader Unpacking Europe (2001). Dadi serves on the editorial advisory boards of Archives of Asian Art and BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies. As an artist he collaborates with Elizabeth Dadi. Their practice investigates identity and borders, and the capacities of urban informality across South Asia and the Global South.
Location: College of Art & Design, Punjab University
Date: February 27, 2020
To view the complete talk, please visit: Iftikhar Dadi on Lahore Cinema from 1960s till 2010s