ABOUT THE FILM

NOSTALGIA FOR THE FUTURE

Documentary film, Hindi and English with English subtitles, 16mm film and Digital Video, Colour and B/W, 54 minutes, 2017.

Screenings

Pinakothek Moderne, Munich, 2020

Chicago Architecture Biennial, September 2019 to January 2020.
Dhaka Art Summit, 2018.

Documenta 14, Athens, 2017.

Over 100 screenings at film festivals, cultural and academic fora in India, USA, Europe and East Asia.

Awards

Best Documentary Prize at IDSFFK, Trivandrum, 2017
Jury’s Special Mention at Signs Festival, Thrissur, 2017

cropped-nostalgia-for-the-future-film-stills13.jpg

Direction – AVIJIT MUKUL KISHORE and ROHAN SHIVKUMAR
Produced by – FILMS DIVISION INDIA
Script – ROHAN SHIVKUMAR
Camera, Editing and Narration – AVIJIT MUKUL KISHORE
Sound Recording – ASHEESH PANDYA
Additional Sound Recording – SURESH RAJAMANI
Sound Post-production – GISSY MICHAEL
Assistant Director – SABARI PANDIAN

‘Nostalgia for the Future’ is a film on Indian modernity, the making of the citizen and the architecture of the home. It looks at imaginations of homes across four examples of buildings made over the period of a century. These are Lukhshmi Vilas Palace in Baroda – the gigantic home built by a progressive monarch in the late 19th Century; Villa Shodhan in Ahmedabad – a private residence which represents the idea of domesticity within Nehruvian modernity, designed by Le Corbusier; Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, which epitomises the Gandhian aspirations of the nation-state; and public housing in post-independence Delhi, designed by the Government of India to house refugees from Pakistan and the bureaucrats of the newly independent nation.

The film explores these spaces and imagines the bodies that were meant to inhabit them through the evocation of the cinematic and aural collective memory of a nation. It uses a mix of formats – 16mm film and digital video in both colour and black and white, along with archival footage from state propaganda films and mainstream cinema.

The film is a collaboration between film maker Avijit Mukul Kishore and architect Rohan Shivkumar. It emerges from the intersection of their respective disciplines – architecture and documentary film, both of which have been ingrained in the discourse of utilitarianism and certainty. The film opens these disciplines out to self-critique and looks at their role in imagining and constructing a nation and its citizen.

The film is produced by Films Division India.

 

THE DIRECTORS

Director Avijit Mukul Kishore

Avijit Mukul Kishore is a filmmaker and cinematographer based in Mumbai, working in documentary and inter-disciplinary moving-image practices. He is involved in cinema pedagogy as a lecturer, and curates film programmes for prominent national cultural institutions. His films as director include Snapshots from a Family Album, Vertical City, To Let the World In, Electric Shadows and Nostalgia for the Future, and as cinematographer: Kumar Talkies, Kali Salwaar, John and Jane, Seven Islands and a Metro, Bidesia in Bambai, I am Micro and An Old Dog’s Diary.

Director - Rohan Shivkumar

Rohan Shivkumar is an architect and an urban designer practicing in Mumbai. He is the Dean of Research and Academic Development at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies. His work spans architectural and interior design, to urban research and consultancy on issues concerning housing, public space and sanitation. He is interested in exploring the many ways of reading and representing the city, and is co-editor of the publication on a research and art collaboration – Project Cinema City. He also curates film programmes and writes for Anarchytect (blog) on cinema and urban issues. He is working on a book discussing approaches to the design of homes among Indian architectural practices.

 

Nostalgia for the Future film stills23

TRAILER

SCREENINGS AND AWARDS

AWARDS

BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD (long documentary category)
International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, Trivandrum, June 2017.

JURY’S SPECIAL MENTION
Signs Film Festival, Kochi, September 2017.

Jury’s citation: “A sensitive evocation of popular memory in imagining homes and habitations while weaving individual aspirations into the larger narrative of the nation”.

 

USA SCREENINGS 2019

Chicago Architecture Biennial

University of Virginia, Charlottesville

Bernard College, Columbia University, New York

Grey Art Gallery, New York University

University of Pittsburgh

 

THE FACTORY CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTRE 2018

Contemporary Indian Documentary Programme (Opening film)
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, July 2018

USA SCREENINGS 2017

University of Texas at Austin
Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts

USA SCREENINGS 2017

22279558_1695785977106690_7320168562513805407_n20 October / Princeton University / New Jersey

24 October / Cornell University / Ithaca, New York

25 October / Columbia University / New York, New York

26 October / Brown University / Providence, Rhode Island

31 October / Harvard University / Cambridge, Massachusetts (South Asia Institute, 6 pm)
 
EARLIER SCREENINGS
International

Dhaka Art Summit, February 2018

Documenta 14, Athens, Greece, June 2017
CeMIS, University of Göttingen, Germany, June 2017
TU Delft, The Netherlands, June 2017

India

TRIVANDRUM
10th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, June 2017

KOCHI

VisionMix Future Orbits, Kochi Biennale 2017
Signs Film Festival, September 2017

DELHI

India International Centre
FD Zone, Delhi, India Habitat Centre
School af Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia

MUMBAI
FD Zone, Films Division India
Godrej India Culture Lab
Kalaghoda Art Fair at Max Muller Bhavan as part of Urban Design and Architecture Programme
Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture
sP+a Architecture studio

Bombay Connect

BANGALORE
Indian Institute for Human Settlements
Bangalore International Centre
Azim Premji University

RV College of Architecture

MASA

PUNE
TIFA Working Studios
Film and Television Institute of India

CHENNAI
Chennai Architecture Foundation, Spaces

AHMEDABAD

Sangath
FAAA- Faculty of Architecture Alumni Meet, Mill Owners Building
Idea College of Architecture

18765646_1561975677154388_1313515465781939029_n

20449133_1631013140250641_5829309277768022209_o

IMG_9816