Producing Heritage Value: The Cultural Politics of Saving Indian Cinema

• Applicant: Amrita Biswas
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 574829696

My project will analyze the politics, practices and infrastructures that configure the statist production of heritage value, through film preservation and restoration. Focusing on the National Film Heritage Mission launched by the Government of India in 2015 (NFHM), I will study institutional interventions in saving, and ensuring the continued circulation of, Indian Cinema. Being one of the largest film-making countries in the world, the paucity of the preservation of Indian films by the NFAI (National Film Archive of India) has been documented by film archivists and media historians. The NFHM is therefore a necessary cultural intervention, resuscitating films to make them available to the public. However, the Mission, being an enterprise of the right-wing government, deserves critical scrutiny. My research objective, therefore, is to inquire into the politico-cultural agenda borne by national initiatives of heritage preservation. My primary objective is to broaden the conceptualization of ‘media production’ by combining the notions of ‘production,’ ‘film heritage’ and ‘value.’ Building upon the theorizations in the field of Production Studies, I will examine the political economy of media production. I, however, foreground an expansive notion of production by moving beyond the creation of the filmic material. I will document the interaction between cultural practices, infrastructures and statist discourses which result in the restoration of Indian films, and thereby, in the production of their heritage value. My research objective is to investigate the statist motive for an investment in national film heritage which, by recognizing the films that should be saved, defines the boundaries for what qualifies as the appropriate ‘cultural heritage’ of a nation. By examining how public-funded programs ascribe meanings to film artifacts, I will articulate a South Asia-oriented critical perspective which traces the points of intersection between ‘national,’ ‘global’ and ‘regional’ imaginaries of cultural heritage. My goal, through an examination of the politico-cultural context within which heritage value is produced, is to understand how an institution posits its cultural power as a value-generator. My project will scrutinize whether right-wing states can appropriate notions of ‘film heritage’ to further their political objectives of achieving cultural homogenization. It, therefore, intends to articulate the crucial function that the Humanities can perform in examining statist strategies for the construction of selective narratives about a nation. It also aims to engage in dialogues with scholars and archivists to comprehend the structural inequities in heritage preservation between nations comprising the Global North and the Global South.

• DFG Programme: Fellowship
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Host: Professorin Dr. Giovanna Fossati