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Film studies seminar - Dr Sonal Kantaria: The Fox and the Snake
06 June 2023, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Join UCL Film Studies and Dr Sonal Kantaria for the seminar - The Fox and the Snake.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Dr Clive Nwonka
Location
-
Haldane RoomWilkins BuildingGower StreetLondonWC1E 6BT
In this paper Dr Sonal Kantaria brings some of Karl Schoonover’s ideas from his article "Wastrels of Time: Slow Cinema’s Laboring Body, the Political Spectator and the Queer" into dialogue with aspects of her own work, which could be said to reflect qualities of slow cinema.
This consists of two films: The Fox and the Snake. Both films of a dead fox and snake take place in Greenough Flats, a terrain in the mid-west of Western Australia that was both an Aboriginal mythological site and a place of massacre during colonisation. The film’s duration is under five minutes and has elements relational to slow cinema and forms the beginning of almost ten years of collaborative filmmaking with Elders on Yamaji Country in Western Australia.
About the Speaker
Dr Sonal Kantaria
Sonal Kantaria is a lecturer in Film Studies at Met Film School, the University of the Creative Arts and London Film Academy. Her research centres on race and representation, post-colonial and World Cinema with a focus on Australian Cinema and representations of Aboriginality by Indigenous and non-Indigenous filmmakers. As a filmmaker and photographer, her work is interdisciplinary and focuses on artist film and documentary forms. Kantaria’s work explores themes of movement, settlement, representation, and cultural identity.
In works such as in her collaborative film work After the Crows Flies (2016), Kantaria explores the aftermath and ongoing effects of colonisation on indigenous populations in Western Australia. In 2014, Autograph published a portfolio of Kantaria's photographs portraying residents at an Indian care home in Leicester, UK in the publication Who Cares…, powerfully probing the intersections of isolation, age, and migration. Other previous works have focused on the protection of women’s rights and gender-based violence, such as Naseeb: Trafficked (2010), portraying young Indian and Bangladeshi women caught in a web of human trafficking and prostitution
Kantaria undertook her PhD in Film Studies at Kings College, London. She has exhibited internationally at the Magenta Foundation, Delhi Photo Festival, Perth Centre for Photography, Ikon Gallery and Whitechapel Gallery. Her films were showcased in the BAFTA-recognised Aesthetica Film Festival and the London International Short Film Festival. Her works are held in collections including the Wesfarmers Art Collection, Australia and the UK Parliament Art Collection. She is represented by Finkelstein Gallery in Melbourne, Australia.
