Shweta Kishore lectures in Screen and Media at RMIT University, Australia. She is the author of Indian Documentary Film and Filmmakers: Independence in Practice and has published widely on Indian documentary, documentary ethics, feminist film, and activist film festivals. Shweta is a documentary practitioner and has curated documentary and artist cinema programmes for the Kochi Muziris Biennale (India), The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre (Vietnam), and the Melbourne International Film Festival (Australia).

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgements Introduction1. Histories and Cultures: Space, Filmmaker, Text, SpectatorPublic Space and Democratic Instruments An Involved FilmmakerText, Representation and Reflexivity Spectator and Horizontal Communication 2. Method and MeaningFilmmakers, Histories, Concerns, Aesthetics Artisanal ProductionDocumentary as Signifying Practice 3. Documentary Financing and ProductionNGOS and Useful MediaInstitutionally Managed PracticeSelf-Managed PracticeA Tactics of Practice; Decapitalisation and De-economisation4. Documentary Circulation and Exhibition The Regulated Public DomainFrom Information to EmotionBetween Participant and AudienceA Tactics of Circulation: An Involved Publics and Decentering Copyright 5. People and Documentary The Represented and Institutional SubjectArtist, Meanings, ObligationSpeaking with the SubjectIndependent: Interdependent and Negotiated Consent PracticeAfterwordFilmographyWorks Cited

A fine contribution to our understanding of social-issue and activist documentary cinema and its lively incarnation in India since 1987. Rigorous and resourceful, Kishore’s labour of love ranges from the work of five exemplary artists to their theoretical and political context. With the growing circulation of independent Indian nonfiction voices and images, practising independence becomes increasingly urgent.