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Film Screening and Talk: Partition, South Asian Cinemas and Manto

  • 1925 South Michigan Ave Chicago, IL 60616 (map)

Manto

Manto is a 2018 Indian biographical film based on the life of the prominent author Saadat Hasan Manto, written and directed by Nandita Das. Manto is based on the 1940s post-Independence period of India. The film stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the title character of Indo-Pakistani, author and writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Tahir Raj Bhasin plays the 1940s Bollywood superstar Shyam Chadda, Manto's friend, confidant, and inspiration for a number of stories. Rasika Dugal plays the role of Manto's wife, Safia.

Talk by Rini Bhattacharya Mehta
"Partition, South Asian Cinemas, and Manto"

Rini Bhattacharya Mehta is the author of Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and Bollywood, her research looks at the complex series of events that allowed the entire Indian film industry to defy attempts to control, reform, and refine it in the twentieth century and beyond. She is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies Program in Comparative and World Literature at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Other topics of her research interests include Nationalism and Religion, British Colonization of India, Colonial Modernities, Postcolonial and Postglobal India, Indian Cinema and Media, Postcolonial and Post-global Modernities