A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Unexpected artivism: the fabulatory function in Kumaré – In Special Issue: Unruly documentary artivism




SubtitleIn Special Issue: Unruly documentary artivism

AuthorsIlona Hongisto, Toni Pape

PublisherRoutledge

Publication year2015

JournalStudies in Documentary Film

Volume9

Issue1

First page 69

Last page83

Number of pages15

ISSN1750-3280

eISSN1750-3299

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2014.1002252(external)

Web address http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsdf20#.Vl5sG2QrKis(external)


Abstract

This article addresses artivism in Vikram Gandhi's 2011 documentary film Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet. The documentary tells the story of the fake guru Kumaré (played by Gandhi) who sets out to prove that spiritual leaders are illusions and that the power of self-transformation lies within the individual. Gandhi's intention of revealing the illusory quality of representation in religion forms the more conventional artivist arc of the documentary. The documentary's self-help narrative is, however, challenged by the filmmaking process that creates an unexpected relational field extending well beyond Gandhi's intentions. The article elaborates on unintentional relationality through the notion of fabulation and argues for an ethics that foregrounds collective creativity and questions individualistic self-transformation.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 15:32