Can we write women’s authorial roles into the history of industrial cinema in South Asia? How can we understand women’s creative authority and access to the film business infrastructure in this postcolonial region? Esha Niyogi De draws on rare archival and oral sources to explore these questions from a uniquely comparative perspective, delving into examples of women holding influential positions as stars, directors, and producers across the film industries in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

De uses film tropes to examine the ways women directors and film entrepreneurs claim creative control within the contexts of anti-colonial nationalism and global capitalism. The region’s fictional cinemas have become staging grounds for postcolonialism, with colonial and local hierarchies merged into new imperial formations. De’s analysis shows how the gendered intersections of inequity and opportunity shape women’s fiction filmmaking while illuminating the impact of state and market formations on the process.

Innovative and essential, Women’s Transborder Cinema examines the works of South Asia’s women filmmakers from a regional perspective.

Acknowledgments

A Note on Translation and Transliteration

Introduction. “I Must Be Famous to Be Heard”: Star-Authors, Female Fictions, and Transborder Modes of Women’s Cinema

Part I. Maternal Modes and Infrastructural Access

1. Decoupled Maternities: Female Stars in Production Modes, Kolkata
2. Public Maternities: Women’s Companies and a Sororal Production Mode, Dhaka

Part II. Corporeal Modes and Scales of National Labor

1. Performing Bodies: Entertainer Authors and Small-Scale Urdu Cinema in Lahore Studios
2. Timing Bodies: Hindi Cinema and a Female Brand Author at Bollywood Scale

Part III. Familial Modes and Scales of Transnational Crossing

1. Families Out of Bounds: The Pirate Mode and Women’s Coproductions across Pakistan and Bangladesh
2. Families Torn and Found: Feminist Modes and Transnational Bangla Media

Coda

Notes