As Calcutta's star begins to fade, with the capital of His Majesty's India shifting to Delhi, Abani Chatterjee's is on the rise. He is well on his way to become the country's first silent screen star. But just as he is about to find fame, an occurence in the form of personal disaster strikes in the Chatterjee household.

This book is about forms of media that have reflected or increased consciousness of - a sense of place or a regional identity. From landscape painting in the Romantic era to newspaper coverage of devolution, the chapters explore, through contextualized case studies, the aesthetics of a wide range of local, regional and grassroots forms of media.

With in-depth interviews of directors like Nina Davenport, Ross McElwee, Ed Pincus, and others, Avant-Doc provides a unique oral history of the hybrid genre of nonfiction film that combines the techniques of avant-garde auteurs with the more traditional methods of conventional storytelling.

"This important collection reprints influential works in the early history of moving pictures in the UK. Ranging from the period of invention in the early 1890s to the First World War, the pieces include the seminal 1917 report to the Cinema Commission of Enquiry The Cinema--Its Present Position and Future Possibilities; Colin Bennett's 1913 Handbook of Kinematography; articles from trade journals published during the 1910s; and more."--Publisher description.