Screening South Asia: Cultural Bridge, Critical Lens

South Asian cinema shapes how millions of people around the world encounter the region’s cultures, languages, and identities. For many, film provides a gateway to South Asian languages and literature, and to cultural conversations that cross national, regional, and diasporic borders. But what does South Asian cinema say about the societies it represents? Beneath the spectacle, song, and romance, filmmakers across the region - including those working within Bollywood - have long grappled with questions of gender, caste, ethnicity, class, beauty, and skin colour. How do these tensions sit alongside cinema’s power to foster cross-cultural empathy and identification? And what can film reveal about the complexity and diversity within South Asian cultures themselves? Co-presented by La Trobe Asia and the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, this event brings together researchers and practitioners to explore South Asian cinema as both a cultural bridge and a critical lens. Panel: Dr Ian Woolford (Hindi Studies, La Trobe University) Dr Divya Rama Gopalakrishnan (History, La Trobe University) Dr Phebyn Joseph (Hindi Studies, La Trobe University) MJ Bently (Partnerships Manager, Indian Film Festival in Melbourne) Matt Smith (La Trobe Asia) Recorded on 7th August, 2026.