Kamlabai – Open City Documentary Festival 2023

Reena Mohan’s 1991 portrait of Kamlabai Gokhale is screening as part of The Invisible Self a programme of films curated by Shai Heredia exploring feminist documentary filmmaking in India during the 1980s and 1990s. This programme is taking place as part of Open City Documentary Festival, showcasing the art of non-fiction.

Kamlabai Gokhale was one of the first actors of India, and the first lady of Indian cinema. This film follows conversations with Kamlabai as she talks about her present, past and her future through photographs, enactments from a play, and music from the beginning of this century. Kamlabai offers a unique and rarely explored perspective of the history of Indian cinema and theatre as experienced by a woman who struggled against the social structures of her times. 

In the presence of Reena Mohan and followed by a conversation between Reena Mohan and Shai Heredia.