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Still from Community as Auteur

DIFF Conversations

Community as Auteur

Hansa Thapliyal, Pulkit Tomar, Ridham Janve, Shilpi Gulati with Shabani Hassanwalia

Screening at DIFF 2026

Fri30 to Friday 30 Oct · House of Peace and Dialogue
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Runtime
90 min

Synopsis

The auteur theory framed the director as the central shaping force of a film. But soon, there was a backlash with the ‘death of the auteur’ counter-theory, and cinema collectives formed where it was the collective political voice, and not the singular personal voice that dominated. When you make a film as a community, whose varying voices, personalities, preoccupations, and stylistic proclivities seep into the film’s form, the stakes explode. Working with many voices, is it the job of a director to find a chorus among the chaos, shaping the film like a music conductor, or does one revel in discordance? In what voice does the film sing? Can discordance be a virtue in cinema, obsessed as we are with coherence?

Speakers

Hansa Thapliyal Hansa ThapliyalPanelistHansa Thapliyal is a filmmaker, writer, translator, teacher and doll maker, whose work, for the past many years, has been to return a tactile presence to her practice, making it sensory and experiential.Pulkit Tomar Pulkit TomarPanelistPulkit Tomar is a filmmaker from Uttarakhand. He recently received the Writer’s INK Screenwriting Excellence Award for his debut feature, When the Mountain Saw a Peacock.Ridham Janve Ridham JanvePanelistRidham Janve is an independent filmmaker and visual artist working across cinema and painting. Rooted in landscapes, folklore and communities, his work explores life’s strange, spiritual and absurd dimensions.Shilpi Gulati Shilpi GulatiPanelistShilpi Gulati is a Mumbai based documentary filmmaker, scholar and educator. A National Award winner and a Fulbright scholar, her interest in feminist pedagogy and co-creation finds expression in her recent film Mast Mahila Mandali.Shabani Hassanwalia Shabani HassanwaliaModeratorShabani Hassanwalia is a filmmaker and writer working across film, publishing, curation and alternative media. She is currently the chief editor and producer of The Third Eye.

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