Raj (23 min) by Amrita Patil
The film is about the world of comic books, in this case Raj comics, the pioneer production house of superhero culture in India. Starting in the eighties, Raj comics crossed several stages in order to become what it is. The film records the accounts of five people deeply entrenched in the culture of comic books, namely a collector cum body-builder, a seller, an artist, an ex-fan and the creator of Raj himself, Sanjay Gupta. Through the director’s own triggers of memories of the days bygone, the film tries to trace the transformation of a pocket book series into a whole movement that changed lives of the fans in more than one way. With the advent of technology making entertainment more accessible, the print media also had to go through a transformation of its own. The film is not just about the comics but also different people related to them, in one way or another, people that make the comic culture in India what it is. And it certainly goes to say that without these, there would be no comic culture as we know it today.