Thinking Beyond Species: Cinema in the Anthropocene
Bengaluru, Karnataka. India
Organization: Alliance University, Bengaluru
From Panorama of Calcutta, India from the River Ganges (1899), one of the earliest instances of filming a river in India, to Dweepa (Kannada, 2002), set against the developmentalist project of damming rivers; from Elephant Boy (1937), which emerged out of documentary footage of elephant–mahout life in Mysore, to Kadaisi Vivasayi (Tamil, 2021), which reflects on forms of ecological knowledge threatened by the disappearance of agrarian life; from Ajantrik (Bengali, 1958), an anthropomorphic tale of intimacy between a taxi driver and his aging car, to Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 (Malayalam, 2019), which imagines a robot as caregiver, companion, and surrogate son; from Warning from Space (Japanese, 1956) about aliens who use shape shifting technology to assume human form, to Arrival (English, 2016) which imagines the human encounter with a species having a cyclical conception of time and language - cinema has persistently returned to the question of human relationships with the non-human world.
These films emerge from widely different historical and political contexts. Some have been read as imperial or colonial films; others may be situated within traditions of ecocinema, environmental cinema, speculative fiction, apocalyptic sci-fi drama, or machinic cinema. Yet what binds them together is a shared attempt to imagine worlds beyond human exceptionalism. Rivers, animals, forests, machines, aliens, landscapes, objects and ecosystems cease to function as passive backgrounds to human drama and instead become active presences that shape cinematic perception, narrative, temporality, and ethics. Such films compel us to ask: what happens when cinema begins to think beyond the species? How might these more-than-human imaginaries reshape our understanding of cinema in the age of the Anthropocene?
In recent decades, terms such as climate change, ecological crisis, pollution, extractive capitalism, environmental displacement, and sustainability have increasingly entered public discourse. At the same time, the environmental humanities, ecocinema studies, posthumanism, animal studies, and political ecology have challenged anthropocentric ways of understanding culture and representation. Film scholars such as Scott MacDonald, Stephen Rust, and John A. Duvall among others have argued for approaches to cinema that foreground ecological entanglements and more-than-human worlds. South Asian screen cultures, with their long histories of negotiating colonialism, development, caste, labour, technology, agrarian transformation, and environmental precarity, offer a particularly rich site for such inquiry.
At another level, the Anthropocene also compels us to rethink cinema not merely as representation but as material practice. Contemporary filmmaking raises urgent questions about energy consumption, electronic waste, set construction, travel emissions, and the carbon footprint of global film industries and festivals. During the Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker and environmental activist Cyril Dion drew attention to the ecological costs of filmmaking and the need for sustainable production practices. Organisations such as Ecoprod have similarly advocated for greener modes of film production. The ecological question, therefore, is not only one of cinematic representation but also of cinematic infrastructure, labour, technology, and industrial practice.
This seminar seeks to bring together scholars, filmmakers, artists, researchers, and students to explore the intersections of cinema, and ecologies beyond nature. Rather than limiting itself to textual readings of “environmental films,” the seminar invites engagements with the philosophical, aesthetic, political, technological, and material dimensions of cinema’s encounter with the non-human. We are especially interested in approaches that interrogate the boundaries between human and non-human life, nature and technology, organic and machinic worlds, and representation and material practice.
Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
- Cinema in the Anthropocene
- Human–non-human relations in cinema
- More-than-human worlds and cinematic ecologies
- Animals, forests, rivers, oceans, and landscapes on screen
- Water politics, dams, and developmentalism
- Agrarian crisis and ecological memory
- Extinction, biodiversity, environmental loss and ecocide
- Environmental justice, caste ecologies, and environmental racism
- Climate crisis and cinematic imagination
- Disaster, toxicity, and ecological precarity
- Migration, displacement, and climate refugees
- Eco-horror, speculative fiction, and posthuman futures
- Machines, AI, robotics, and machinic life in cinema
- Colonialism, empire, and environmental histories
- Indigenous and vernacular ecological knowledges in cinema
- Environmental documentary and activist media
- Material ecologies of cinema and media infrastructures
- Green filmmaking and sustainable production practices
- Waste, energy, extraction, and the film industry
- Audience reception of eco-messages in films and environmental activism
The seminar welcomes individual paper presentations as well as panel proposals consisting of three presenters. Interdisciplinary approaches from film studies, media studies, environmental humanities, anthropology, philosophy, cultural studies, history, literary studies, architecture, science and technology studies, and related fields are especially encouraged.
Please note
- The Seminar will be organized in Alliance University, Bengaluru, and it is an on-site only seminar with no virtual attendance option.
- Abstracts of about 200 words are to be sent to the following email id: tfointernationalseminar2026@gmail.com.
- The last date for sending the abstract is August 25, 2026.
- The acceptance of abstracts for paper presentation at the Seminar will be communicated by August 31, 2026.
- Paper presenters will confirm their participation by September 6, 2026 and register for the Seminar paying a registration fee of Rs. 3500/-, which includes working lunch on two days of the Seminar, accommodation on twin-sharing basis and the Seminar kit.
Seminar Core Committee
- Dr. Liju Jacob Kuriakose, Asst. Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Alliance University, Bengaluru
- Dr. Pritha Chakrabarti, Asst. Professor and Head, Alliance School of Film and Media Studies, Alliance University, Bengaluru
- Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti, Asst. Professor, Alliance School of Film and Media Studies, Alliance University, Bengaluru
- Sayantan Datta, Asst. Professor, Alliance Centre for Writing and Critical Pedagody, Alliance School of Liberal Arts, Alliance University, Bengaluru
- Dr. Gita Viswanath, Talking Films Online Community Member and Academic Fellow, FCT, Baroda
- Dr. Sanjay Kumar, Talking Films Online Community Member and Asst. Professor, Dept. of French and Francophone Studies, The EFL University, Hyderabad
- Dr. Nikhila S., Talking Films Online Community Member and Professor, Dept. of Film Studies, The EFL University, Hyderabad
- Tonmay Das, Talking Films Online Community Member, and Research Scholar, IIT Dharwad (For urgent queries about the Seminar, please contact: tonmay.das.r@gmail.com)
Talking Films Onlne (TFO)