This original collection of new work explores the breadth and depth of South Asia's many vibrant cinemas. Going well beyond Bollywood, it explores music, dance, audiences, filmmakers, and film industries in Nepali, Sri Lankan, Pakistani Panjabi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Kannada, and early Tamil cinemas, along with variations on Bollywood genres.

This book was originally published as a special issue of South Asian Popular Culture.

Sara Dickey is Professor of Anthropology at Bowdoin College, U.S.A. Her research interests include class in urban India, and Tamil film-watching, cinema, and politics. She is author of Cinema and the Urban Poor in South India and co-editor of Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia.

Rajinder Dudrah is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for Screen Studies at the University of Manchester, UK. He has researched and published widely in film, media and cultural studies in international journals. His books include Bollywood: Sociology Goes to the Movies and Bhangra: Birmingham and Beyond.

1. Widening the Lens on South Asian Cinemas Sara Dickey and Rajinder Dudrah 2. What Is Tamil about Tamil Cinema? Stephen Hughes 3. Mediating Bhojpuriya: Migration, Circulation, and Bhojpuri Cinema Kathryn Hardy 4. Bollylite in America Priya Joshi 5. The Indian People's Theater Association (IPTA) on Film: (Con)testing Memory and History in the Bengali Theaterscapes of Ritwik Ghatak's Komal Gandhar ('E Flat', 1961) Erin O'Donnell 6. Silence and the Uncanny: Partition in the Soundtrack of Khamosh Pani Pavitra Sundar 7. Ladies Queues, 'Roadside Romeos', and Balcony Seating: Ethnographic Observations on Women's Cinema-Going Experiences Lakshmi Srinivas 8. Under India's Big Umbrella? Bollywood Dance in Nepal Sangita Shresthova 9. An Overview of Contemporary Sri Lankan Cinema: A Photographic Essay Abby Robinson