cinema

Between Memory and Forgetting: Representation of Identity and Family in Thanmathra

February 27, 2026

This essay examines the interplay of memory, identity, and family as portrayed in the film Thanmathra (2005). Serving as the primary text, Thanmathra provides a cinematic exploration of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, particularly highlighting how memory loss disrupts personal identity and familial bonds. Thanmathra (English: Molecule) is a 2005 Indian Malayalam-language drama film written and directed by Blessy and starring Mohanlal, Meera Vasudevan and Arjun Lal. Based on Padmarajan’s short story “Orma”, it portrays the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on the life of Ramesan Nair (Mohanlal) and his family.

Partition, Cinema and Prosthetic Memory: On the Cinematic Works of Ritwik Ghatak and Nemai Ghosh – Sriparna Datta

April 17, 2023

Cinema is an altogether different medium of artistic expression from literature. Its power of capturing the present has complicated the concept of memory and postmemory. The experience of a geo-political event like partition passes from one generation to another through memory. But what happens when the first-hand experience of partition is captured in a cinematic work? This essay will engage with this complex phenomenon of Indian history reflected in Nemai Ghosh’s Chinnamul (The Uprooted) and Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star). In addition, I shall emphasise how Ghosh and Ghatak use the technique of telling and re-telling stories to recreate the partition memory in a more complex manner. However, in bringing these two works together, this article will discuss the idea of prosthetic memory and trauma related to the Bengal partition.

Camp as Moral Architecture: Memory, Migration and Resistance – Adhila Abdul Hameed

March 7, 2023

Remembrance seems to be about the past. While the Holocaust is an event in the past, the Nakba did not end in 1948. The relationship between film and reality is historically and politically infused in the films of the Palestinian new wave to create a cultural weapon that also serves as resistance. These movies are works of oppressed people’s history. This paper intends to focus on the intersections of memory and trauma in Mahdi Fleifel’s A World Not Ours and Mai Masri’s Children of Shatila, by examining the themes of traumatic identity, global and prosthetic memory in the films. The study further explores the representation of memory and how it externalizes and historicizes traumatic emotions which would otherwise remain at the level of internal and individual psychology.