Moving towards the epicentre: the void and the image in the film-making of R.V. Ramani

This article explores the methodology of one of India's leading non-fiction filmmakers. R.V. Ramani. His films critically examine the practices of artists and filmmakers [such as] Vivan Sundaram's project on the modernist sculptor, Ramkinkar Baij. (...) The films discussed in this article, however, were not commissioned by others but were initiated by Ramani himself, emerging from autobiographical and environmental dilemmas in his home state of Tamil Nadu, South India. The include, among others, My Camera and the Tsunami (2011) and Brahma Vishnu Shiva (1998). These works are analysed to discover how they reflect an engagement with the concept of 'void' while simultaneously detailing the filmmaker's authoring processes as a cinematographer. To aid this analysis, I draw upon certain theories of the (late) Indian filmmaker, art critic and theorist, Mani Kaul.