I have always felt that the best part of my job as a social science researcher is the opportunity to directly interact with many different kinds of people. A huge part of this incentive is the chance to have in-depth conversations and understand people from various cultural contexts. These conversations often reflect their tendencies and the factors that drive those tendencies, and helps correlate it to how those impact industries; in this case the tourism and entertainment industries.

I study film-induced tourism. Particularly, I look at the film tourism industry through various perspectives in relation with Bollywood cinema, which also includes understanding the ‘film tourist’ and learning from various groups of tourists as to what motivates their travel behaviour. It is interesting for me to see how the workings of both the media and tourism industries are intertwined and know from the tourists’ perspective what inspires them to travel.

For example, in my second case study, I look at how fan-tourists perform their fandom on-site by indulging in reenactments of song and dance inspired by Bollywood cinema. During my fieldwork, I interviewed one of my respondents, Abhishek Shetty, who is an Indian currently living in Dubai. Abhishek, 29, is an engineer in the field of construction. He is extremely passionate about both traveling and cinema and is a huge fan of Bollywood films. He is a part of many social media groups and has also amassed for himself a huge following on Twitter due to his tweets and posts related to travel, cinema and particularly a combination of the two.

I found it interesting to document Abhishek’s active participation in the act of film tourism due to his close affinity and meticulous attention to track and trace specific locations in popular Bollywood films and go there in search of them. In the interview that follows, he tells us more about himself, his nature of travel and of course, to what extent has Bollywood inspired his travels.

How and since when have you been traveling?

I have never traveled while growing up (aside from south India and Dubai) as I couldn’t really afford it. I saw it as a luxury so never really considered it, although I was always fascinated by it. I assumed it was something that only the super rich do. The travel bug bit me after I saw a film called Zindagi Na milegi Dobara (2011)which was shot extensively in Spain. I was crazy about traveling to Spain because of that film. Such was my craze that I even ended up taking a job from a Spanish company based in Dubai only because the employer told me that they would be sending me to Spain for training. I started traveling since I was around 22 and I try to travel at least 40 days a year.

What role does Bollywood play in your life? How does it influence your various walks of life?

I have been a crazy Bollywood buff ever since I was 4 years old when I saw a film called Baazigar (1993). Though I didn’t understand Hindi back then, I completely connected to the lead protagonist and cried like a baby when he dies in the end. Since then there was no looking back and now I am a Bollywood geek in the proper sense of the word.

To what extent do films play a part in motivating your travel?

Before I travel to any place, I do my research to see what films are shot there and I try to make it a point to visit these locations. In some cases I even choose the destination after seeing it in a film that I like. I mostly visit locations of the films of Shahrukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and Christopher Nolan.

You really have a pronounced fandom towards Shahrukh Khan (SRK). How and when did that begin? What is the connection you derive from him/his work?

As mentioned earlier, watching Baazigar made me his fan instantly and my fanboyism kept increasing as I watched his other films like Darr (1993), DDLJ (1995) and, my favourite, Kabhi haan kabhi naa (1994). Eventhough he played a villain in a lot of his earlier films, I was still rooting for him. I almost saw him as a God and it was my aim in life to get to meet him at least once. I became quite popular in social media later because of my love for him as I kept defending him from his haters. I even used to be the admin of his fan club in orkut.com that had half a million members in it. Now that am grown up and busy I don’t really have the time to indulge in fan club activities but I am still quite popular in social media circles because of my love for him and all my SRK-travel escapades.

Do you also visit places related to his movies specifically? Could you share in-depth, your fascination towards his movie locations?

I mostly visit locations of his films. Since he has done a lot of films that cater to the NRI (Non-resident Indian) audience, he has shot a lot of films in exotic locations which has always fascinated me. I obviously couldn’t travel to these places as a student but now that I earn I spend my time visiting these places.

The places you have visited are very specific, for example also a particular hotel shown in a specific film of Shahrukh Khan, Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017). Could you share some unique experiences as such, that you have been through?

There have been a lot of interesting experiences. For example, two years back when I heard that his upcoming film Jab Harry met Sejal (2017) was extensively shot in Portugal, I decided to go there. Since the film wasn’t out yet, I didn’t have a lot of details about which places did he exactly visit but I still did have some information thanks to my contacts in SRK’s fanclubs. While I was there one evening, I randomly decided to eat in this cozy little restaurant in Lisbon. The Bangladeshi waiter was excited to see me and we immediately striked up a converstion. I ended up asking him about SRK to see if he knows about which places SRK had visited in Lisbon during his shooting a month before. To my shock it turns out that SRK and the rest of the cast and crew had stayed in the very same hotel which the restaurant is a part of . They even showed me photos and the manager narrated me incidents of what happened while he was here. That was quite a crazy co-incidence. By far my most cherished experience has been in a village near Wai district in Maharashtra. This is where Swades was shot. I was hunting for the home where the film was shot. It wasn’t easy to find because unlike every other film location that I have scouted, this wasn’t a tourist destination and is infact a villager’s actual home. Also the people in that area didn’t speak hindi nor English so it was a challenging adventure to find this home. After about 4-5 hours of roaming around, I was finally able to find the home and meet the kind old lady who owns it. She was kind enough to invite me in and even give me food. Another special goosebump-inducing experience has been in Mumbai when I visited the same hotel room where SRK stayed when he first arrived to Mumbai during his struggling days. This room was shown in the movie fan.

What do you experience on-site, when you are on the on-screen location?

Initially I always made it a point to take photographs in these locations doing the classic SRK pose. But now I find it cheesy, so I avoid it. I just visit these places and experience it for what it is. As a fanboy, it gives me a kick to have been in a place where SRK had shot before.

How do you identify and track movie locations? What is the maximum you have gone to track and find a particular location from an SRK movie?

It’s quite easy to track these locations using google. There are websites like filmapia which is like the Wikipedia of recording Bollywood film locations.  For films that haven’t released yet, I use my contacts in various fan clubs of SRK to get the information. Fan clubs like SRK universe and SRK CFC who have direct access to SRK’s team.

Do these sites live upto their on-screen depiction?

Not only do they mostly always live up to the on-screen depiction but in some cases (for eg: Iceland-Gerua song locations) I find that the filmmakers failed to capture the beauty of the real location. The only misleading thing would be the presence of crowds. In movies you see there would hardly be any crowd whereas in real life these places can get quite crowded with tourists. So I generally visit these places at odd hours to avoid the crowd and get a perfect picture.

How many countries have you visited so far? And how many of them are associated with films? Could you name a few/share some unique moments?

I have visited around 25-30 countries and almost all were associated with Bollywood films. Some of my most cherished memories were in Scotland (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, 1998), Greece (Chalte chalte, 2003 ), Czech Republic (Rockstar, 2011), Thailand (Bang bang, 2014), Malaysia (Don, 2006) and of course Spain (Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara, 2011).

How do your friends/family respond to your passion for film tourism?

Being middle class, my parents were initially quite disapproving of me spending all my money in travels. But seeing how happy I am doing what I do they started supporting my hobby. My friends think I am extremely cool because I get to do what I love. Strangers in social media perceive me to be super rich because of this and a lot of women sarcastically propose me for marriage so as to travel along with me haha. I have shockingly received a lot of hate, abuses and death threats too from random strangers when my travel pics went viral as they kept bashing me as to why am I spending money on travels rather than giving it for charity.

You also have a very active Twitter following. You often post a comparative picture of you on-site and the screenshot/image of the onscreen version with captions that specify the travel locations, indicating that you do take film tourism very seriously. Since when are you maintaining an active social media presence? Does that also help you connect with more fans/travelers like you?

I have been active in social media since 2007 and started getting popular because of my (re)views about Bollywood films. Since Bollywood films release a day earlier in Dubai, people look forward to my views always as I watch several films before the rest of the world. SRK has a crazy fan following in Twitter and these fans are the reason why my SRK-Travel photos went viral and were featured in several media outlets.  A collection of all my film-tourism experiences can be found here.

Blog by Débora Póvoa

Much has been written about how digital technologies made it easier for media productions to travel the world – think of cable TV, live streaming, TV-on-demand, etc. Inside our social (media) bubbles, we are used to a constant flow of images on our (phone, tablet, TV, laptop) screens. These images, however, do not reach everyone equally. The Global Digital 2019 reports for example show that while in Northern Europe internet penetration reaches the mark of 95%, in Middle Africa only 12% of the population is connected.

In the country where I conduct research, Brazil, internet distribution is not only still highly uneven, but also analogical forms of media consumption are not accessible to the entire population. In some regions, for instance, people have never visited a movie theater, either because of a lack of financial resources or for simply living in a remote area. That’s where the project Cinesolar comes in. Cinesolar is an itinerant cinema that travels to villages and small towns to exhibit movies and carry out artistic workshops – all for free and moved by solar energy. Being the first travelling cinema in Brazil to ever use renewable energy, Cinesolar promotes art, inclusion and environmental awareness in areas of the country with little access to cultural projects. Besides films, some of the activities the project offers are workshops of graffiti (using natural pigments extracted from coffee and beetroot, for example), organic music (where participants build their own musical instruments out of recycled material) and cinema production (where locals acquire basic knowledge in acting, script-writing and filming techniques, and make a short movie to be exhibited during the main cinema session). Travelling around since 2013 in two vans equipped with solar panels, Cinesolar has so far realized 932 screenings and reached over 150,000 spectators.

As a researcher studying the effects of media in sensitive areas of Brazil, I cannot deny my happiness (and academic interest) when I see initiatives like Cinesolar. In the project Worlds of Imagination we are always casually debating how people travel to film locations here and there, sometimes forgetting that some do not have access to the films in the first place. In this sense, Cinesolar proposes a shift: if people cannot travel to the movies (let alone movie locations), make the movies travel to the people. Considering the inequalities in Brazil, this shift is much welcome – although obviously not a final solution (there is a lot still to be improved in the country in terms of infrastructure for cultural activities, the complexity of which I would not dare explain in one blog post).

In my research I also talk about places that are featured in films, TV series and telenovelas and frequently experience short-lived benefits from the media exposure they receive. Film crews come and go – and seldom leave any legacy for these less privileged areas. What I often observe in my fieldtrips is that locals wish that filming practices were more recurrent and chiefly conducted by themselves. For them, it would be a way to potentially generate a more long-lasting imprint in their communities. Projects to train local communities in filmmaking exist, but due to several shortcomings – lack of resources, for example – they do not take off as expected. Hence, Cinesolar resonates with my research on yet another level. By teaching locals a bit of the profession in its workshops, the project encourages them to become not only cinema consumers, but also cinema producers. Of course, I am not trying to say here that in a couple of days Cinesolar changes people’s lives, or to defend the naïve rhetoric which deems culture (cinema included) as a cure to all problems that such locations face. However, I see in Cinesolar a positive attempt at bridging the gap between these Brazilian villages and the once called ‘global village’. If only for the time Cinesolar is in town, these places connect to widespread media consumption practices and their inhabitants become ‘prosumers’ themselves. Again, definitely not a final solution, but in remote places of Brazil initiatives like that end up somehow remediating the lack of governmental action.

As said in the beginning, media productions travel – through optical fibers and satellites. Cinesolar, however, proposes a more analogical route, bringing cinema and inclusion in the back of a van.

For more information about Cinesolar, access www.cinesolar.com.br.

Blog by Rosa Schiavone

During the Christmas break many of my days were spent binge-watching shows and films on Netflix. So much for all the promises of productivity and finishing up articles I made to myself (although, in my defense, I am after all a media scholar). I watched Bandersnatch, a film special within the television series Black Mirror, a science fiction series about the role of technologies within modern society, which is created by producer, screenwriter and author Charlie Brooker.

Bandersnatch follows the young game developer Stefan in the 1980s. Not the first interactive film or game ever made, but a novel (and somewhat hyped) production nonetheless, Bandersnatch is a choose-your-own-adventure-style film, reminiscent of old gamebooks and 1980s arcade games, in which viewers are presented with choices with determine what protagonists in the narrative do. As such, viewers jump to different chapters and pathways, creating different storylines and conclusions. As I went along, at first making seemingly arbitrary choices such as what breakfast cereal to pick for Stefan, the choices became more difficult, tricky and eventually even gruesome. Suddenly I found myself in an exhaustive loop, trying again and again to avoid Stefan’s grim demise, which seemed to be the inescapable central element of the interactive film.

Between the entertaining interactive elements Bandersnatch has to offer, as well as the bumping 1980s music and nostalgic game consoles, the episode brings forward some very interesting meta-musings on a concept that is of interest to me as a scholar, namely human agency. In the social sciences, the traditional agency vs. structure debate circles around the idea that people have free will, free choice and the ability of acting independently, whilst navigating in society, which contain their own sets of rules, norms and guidelines and limit the choices people can make. As illustrated by Bandersnatch, the agency vs. structure debate is one that is inherently about power.

One way in which this power is enforced, is through what scholars like Foucault and Deleuze have theorized as discourse; a multi-faceted concept referring to “a way of thinking and talking about a particular topic at a particular moment [and in a particular place] in history, that exists and operates in language and texts. A discourse determines and limits what can be said (and known) about that particular topic and in doing so reflects and serves particular interests in society” (definition provided by Emiel Martens). Underlying meanings and knowledges that are inherent in discourses are often “taken-for-granted”, and with that, very powerful as they are deemed ‘natural’ and ‘logical’. As media studies have brought forward, popular media can be seen as one important institute in governing people’s agency. Namely, popular media are a widespread, proliferating, and widely consumed form of entertainment, and form a large part of people’s everyday lives. Popular media entail many (often contrasting) ideologies. Thus, considering their pervasiveness, popular media are important in disseminating particular ideologies which can have consequences in the experience of real, everyday life.

This is a topic that surfaces in my own research as well, in which I look at the interrelations between fiction (film and television) and local and national heritage in the UK. For example, in my research on film tours in Edinburgh, I found how popular cinematic fiction becomes increasingly intertwined with non-mediated, historical narratives in myriad ways. Consequently, this collision of fictional and “factual” narratives shapes particular socio-cultural imaginings of Edinburgh, and Scotland in general; one in which cinematic heritage continues to be subjected to the grand narrative of national history, and another in which Scotland and Edinburgh are constructed as inherently cinematic. As mainly canonical, grand narratives form the crux of the storytelling during the tours, other kinds of histories, such as migrant histories, are overshadowed. A tourist could thus walk away from such a tour with a quite one-sided idea of Edinburgh’s history.

Moreover, fiction seems to be used by tour operators in a distinct way; it is deployed to elucidate, deepen out and dramatize real-life, historical events, thereby tapping into tourists’ imaginations, emotions and feelings. With that, tour operators seem to recognize fiction as a very persuasive “tool” for providing storytelling on the city of Edinburgh. It is the role of fiction in shaping heritage that I’m delving deeper into in my current research on cinematic museums. More so than walking tours, museums are considered as highly authoritative institutions that are pivotal in informing domestic and overseas visitors about local and national culture and identity. What does the world of popular media, and in a broader sense, fiction, mean in these traditional, institutionalized, authoritative settings? And what does it tell us about the presumed reality and national identity of England’s citizens? In other words, how do fiction and presumed reality collide in a highly authoritative setting as museums, which are considered as essential institutions in consecrating national and local heritage?

Ultimately, the fiction of Bandersnatch provides us with the illusion of choice; as you go along the episode, making choices, you will find out that there are, in fact, many limitations. For example, it turns out you, as a viewer, can make a “wrong” decision, which forces the viewer to go back and make another choice, which prolongs the story and which is probably intended by the producers. If we follow Bandersnatch‘ pessimistic and sociological undertone, it remains continuously debatable how much choice and free will we, as people navigating through society, actually have, and how aware we actually are of these settings. After I started to feel increasingly bad for picking the worst options for Stefan, as if I as a viewer symbolized the societal structure in which he futilely navigated his actions, I had to remind myself that it is a fictional story anyway. But despite of all the sci-fi, futuristic and fantastical elements, the grim, entirely fictional Black Mirror “discourse” holds some interesting thoughts which are relevant to everyday, real life, and which are persuasive enough to make me consider that one day, it might even become reality.

Blog by Henry Chow

How do you go back to trusting police in uniform after they have beaten you up? The question lingers as citizen protests disperse and protesters return to their normal lives as citizens. Countries in East Asia that have seen a surge of large-scale protests in recent years, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, are still grappling for an answer.

2014 was a year of direct action in Taiwan and Hong Kong. In March, Taiwanese protesters occupied the legislature and rallied outside on Ketagalan Boulevard, to thwart an attempt by the ruling KMT party to rush through a new trade agreement with China. Over a month’s time, the protest became known as the Sunflower Student Movement and secured concessions and promises from the KMT as it ended the occupation of the Legislative Yuan.

Later in the year, protesters in Hong Kong also laid claim to the streets after police’s use of tear gas galvanised support for pro-democracy activists. Umbrellas that protesters use to block pepper spray became the symbol for the movement. Barricades sealed off sections of public roads for a total of 79 days, and ‘tent villages’ evolved as protesters brought more and more of their everyday lives into the occupy zone. The protests, however, yielded little visible political gains, leaving behind a sense of loss and powerlessness.

Fast forward two years, South Korea was rumbling in the wake of revelations about corruption and undue influence in close circles around President Park Geun-hye. Most visibly in the boulevards between Seoul’s City Hall and Gwanghwamun Square, anti-Park protesters gathered every Saturday like clockwork over the winter of 2016. The sea of candlelight, among which the protesters sat, became another symbol of citizen direct action in East Asia. Park Geun-hye was ultimately impeached by lawmakers in March 2017.

In South Korea, the protests of 2016-17 harked back to democratization protests in the 1980s, a decade which saw bloody suppressions of calls for democracy by the US-supported dictatorship. Stories from the 1980s are painful memories for many South Koreans, but the acts of heroism from the period are also rich material for popular Korean films. The Attorney (2013), A Taxi Driver (2017), and, most recently, 1987: When the Day Comes (2017) show how this page of South Korean history, once considered too political by investors, has been a hit with cinemagoers who are currently also living in a time of direct action.

Interesting for the media scholar in me, is the fact how these media products do not stop at national borders. In Hong Kong, where Umbrella Movement supporters face judicial prosecutions and new restrictions to political rights, South Korean movies about the democratisation struggle have been presented to cinemagoers under a single ‘brand’: the ‘Against Tyranny’ (or ‘Against Power’) trilogy. The Chinese translated titles for the three movies read: The Attorney Against Tyranny; The Driver Against Tyranny; 1987: Citizens Against Tyranny.

But while in Hong Kong protesters and the government still stand on opposite sides of barricades that are no longer there, in South Korea political power has changed hands, and thus, time is ripe to answer the question I asked at the beginning of this post: How do you go back to trusting police in uniform after they have beaten you up?

The answer of screenwriter Noh Hee-kyung, who witnessed the massive anti-government demonstrations that swept the country a few years ago, is to write a television series about it. As she explains to the media:

“Looking at the police making a human barricade in front of me, I wondered if these people really wanted to be here. I stumbled upon them again squatting and eating meals behind police buses. They didn’t make eye contact with the protesters.”I started to wonder why they were there and who ordered them to be there … While doing some reporting for a possible scenario, I learned that they were just doing their job like I do as a writer. They have no choice but to do their job … They called themselves human shields at the front line.” (Source: Yonhap News).

The K-drama series she got to write is called Live (2018), a rookie police drama that follows new recruits through the training academy to their first posting in a local police station. In the characteristic K-drama way, it is heart-warming as well as heart-wrenching, luring viewers to take the place of these police rookies, who at some point question (but ultimately execute) the violence used on peaceful protesters.

In Hong Kong, Live has the translated title of The Rookie Small Potato. Unlike in South Korea, the link of the police drama to its treatment of citizen protests is much underplayed in Hong Kong. Instead of ‘Against Tyranny’, the drama was given the label ‘The Rookie’, placing it in a long line of police newbie comedies. The good intentions of screenwriter Noh are left only to dedicated viewers who stake out the whole series, rather than the casual audience. Reconciliation between the police and the citizenry does not seem to be on the cards as yet.

Blog by Emiel Martens

Last month I attended the 13th Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival in Port of Spain, the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago on the northwest coast of the Caribbean island of Trinidad. I participated in this annual celebration of films from and about the Caribbean and is diaspora in two capacities: as academic researcher and industry partner (the latter as film producer and programmer, mainly through my foundation Caribbean Creativity). My dual lens, zooming both out and in, is part of my attempt to bridge the gap between the world of academia and the world of practice.

As a postdoc researcher at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, I position myself in the field of Media Studies and Postcolonial Media Studies in particular. Traditionally, most work within this field has focused on textual analysis, i.e. the interpretation of the meanings of mass media texts such as feature films, television programs and video games. Although both production research and audience research have over the years become important strands within Media Studies, scholars still too often look at media texts in isolation, without taking into account (or even having knowledge about) their producers and consumers, the people who actually create and negotiate the meanings of the media (and the world in general).

We almost cannot escape the image of the fusty academic ensconced in his ivory tower, explaining the world while at the same time avoiding that very same world. Of course, the ‘ivory tower effect’ is far from unique to Media Studies, but cuts across all academic disciplines. For example, my brother, who is a corporate lawyer, sometimes by pure chance stumbles upon a journal article by a law scholar discussing a case that he has handled. Never has such a scholar approached him for his side of the story and never has it, according to my brother, resulted in a spot-on article. On the rare occasions that the fusty academic does descend from his ivory tower to interact with the world around him, it is usually to visit libraries, to attend conferences, to consult peers, to meet publishers, to convince reviewers, or to teach students (although the fusty academic usually does not like to teach either). Still, on all these occasions, he remains safely within the comforts of the academic world.

However, any academic who would like to think of himself as a committed intellectual (despite the fact that the term ‘intellectual’ is in itself already quite highbrow), should try to reach out to the general public, to communicate on an understandable level, to work together with producers and consumers, and to participate and make a difference in the real world. According to prominent postcolonial thinker Homi K. Bhabha, a ‘committed intellectual’ (it is his term) abolishes the division between theory and politics and uses the act of writing to take a position dedicated to effect social change. I would like to suggest that the act of writing does here not only refer to academic writing but also, and maybe even more so, to popular writing, since this type of writing usually reaches larger audiences and encourages greater social action. While many academics still look down on popular writing, mainly because it is seen as less complete and nuanced, I consider doing a blog like this one, or any other form of public communication (preferably a collaborative form, such as the films I am involved in and also screened in Port of Spain), as of vital importance for the contemporary committed intellectual.

I might even want to take it one step further and argue for the academic as a committed entrepreneur, an academic who not only engages with the stakeholders in the practical world but is a stakeholder in that world himself. Business consultant Isaiah Hankel asserts that ‘the modern professor is not just [or should not just be] an academic intellectual but also an entrepreneur.’According to Hankel, the academic may be “an entrepreneur who spends the morning wearing a pair of Google Glasses (…) [after which] he’ll submit (…) a draft of his next New York Times bestseller to his editors. He’ll attend a regional industry conference next month on the way to giving a TED Talk and appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Network.”

Although I do not aspire to wear Google Glasses, write a New York Times bestseller, do a TED Talk or appear on Oprah’s network, I consider my journey as an academic entrepreneur as a productive path to close the gaps between the academic and the practical. It is my attempt to contribute to awareness and change in the real world, a world that continues to be shaped by colonial legacies and postcolonial predicaments. There are “many rivers to cross”, as Jimmy Cliff already sang in the first Jamaican feature film, The Harder They Come (1972), but a commitment to building bridges remains the way to go.

Blog by Apoorva Nanjangud

The fact that Bollywood cinema has a wide reach globally is a well-known one. A person like me, who consumes Bollywood in good amounts, and now lives out of India, is able to experience firsthand the extent to which Bollywood has had a significant impact across the world. On some occasions, its presence is felt rather strongly.

The other day- I took a day trip to the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens to- let’s say- keep up with the tradition of “every-Indian-in-Holland-must-go-to-Keukenhof”. As expected, not only did I find Indians in plenty, but their sentiment about visiting the Silsila gardens was very evident even decades after the Dutch tulip bloomed on the Indian soil. That had me thinking about how films keep thriving around us way past their screen time and how various associations aid the longevity of certain films. In this case, I had to think of Bollywood’s association with a flower garden. A parallel thought I had was about the practice of filming Bollywood songs abroad, while rest of the film is set on Indian ground.

Silsila (A Series of Events, 1981), a romantic drama set between Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha and Jaya Bachchan, was one of the biggest blockbusters of the commercial era of New Bollywood in the 1980’s. While most of the film was shot in various studios and locations in India, the iconic song “Dekha Ek Khwab” (“I Saw a Dream”) was partly shot in the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens, near Lisse in The Netherlands. Was it the location or the song itself that created a frenzy amongst audiences to strongly desire being in the beauteous Tulip fields at a destination thousands of miles away from where they lived, is a question that remains unresolved until this day. Keukenhof then also played host for another Bollywood movie, Hello Brother, however, the impact of Silsila remains a cornerstone in the garden’s association with Bollywood.

What is most interesting to me is the fact that the frenzy remains so prevalent amongst the (Indian) audiences who still associate this garden with this film and travel in huge numbers just to experience the location in person. Apart from the large number of Indians traveling to Keukenhof, what is telling of this impact is how people dressed up similarly to the iconic duo of Rekha and Amitabh just to be able to recreate their onscreen moments in a photograph.

While wading through the humongous tulip fields, I asked myself many questions- What makes some places so significant to some people, and not so much to the others? What makes some places stand the test of time and continue to be of significance year after year? Do cinematic associations assign more value and longevity to certain places? Of course to unravel these questions requires good amounts of research into film, tourism and their interplay. This project on Bollywood Tourism that I undertake is a step in that direction.

As one can imagine-songs, are an indispensable part of any Bollywood movie narrative- to the extent that songs become the unique selling point of films and ensure they stay viable for years. A striking feature which gained prominence also in the later eras of Bollywood cinema, was the practice of shooting just the songs on scenic locations abroad, while the rest of the film had absolutely no connection to the foreign locations. “Dekha Ek Khwab” is one such example, where just the song sequence boosted audiences imagination towards a faraway land. It created curiosity and longing which continues to attract the film-tourists to visit the tulip fields at Keukenhof. At the same time, such numbers are also looked at as a fruitful enterprise towards boosting the film tourism economy.

In my next case study, for which I begin fieldwork in August, I explore how a songs’ popularity creates an explosion of tourists traveling to a certain destination. This research focuses on the case of the song “Gerua” (“Saffron”) from the film Dilwale (People with Hearts, 2015) and how it has created a superfluous and rapid flow of Indian tourists to Iceland. I look at it as a new wave of tourism unleashed by Bollywood cinema, after the tourism boom to the Swiss Alps post the 1995 release of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). interestingly, Dilwale happens to be a remake of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and that adds an interesting layer to my investigation, as to how two films 20 years apart, with the same star-cast, possess the ability to make people cross borders chasing similar cinematic experiences. Undoubtedly, Bollywood tourism has many such questions and layers waiting to be unraveled!

Blog by Débora Póvoa 

Studying the Brazilian favelas while being based in Rotterdam can sometimes be quite challenging. Until I go on my next field trip in April, I try to overcome the distance with all means I have at hand, but the “fear of missing out” is always present. I ask friends about the current state of affairs in my home town, Rio de Janeiro; I read everything I can find about these territories; I contact my sources when I see their neighbourhoods on the news. It is always an active pursuit to remain connected and up-to-date with the recent developments in the favelas – as it should be, of course – but I often wish I could be closer. So one can imagine how thrilled I was when I found out that the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) would host the world premiere of Sultry (or Mormaço, in Portuguese), a fictional account of the evictions in the favelas that preceded the 2016 Olympic Games. I was glad to see my city represented on a Dutch film festival, especially by a movie that addresses such an urgent and relevant topic.

Directed by Marina Meliande, Sultry combines social realism with horror to tell the story of Ana, a public defender who advocates for the residents of the community Vila Autódromo in a judicial battle to avoid their eviction. Vila Autódromo is a favela in Rio de Janeiro that became a symbol of resistance for fighting against the city government’s plan to demolish several houses and build a road to the neighbouring Olympic Park. In the film, Ana is the intermediary between Vila Autódromo’s inhabitants – played by actual locals and activists – and corrupt politicians. In the meantime, she is fighting an intense heatwave in the city and her own removal from the building where she lives, which was bought by a hotel chain. With all the tensions around her, Ana develops an intense rash, which – spoiler alert – metaphorically connects her annoyance with the heat, her helplessness with the social and political scenario of Rio, and her attachment to the places where she transits.

Although the Kafkaesque skin disease gains prominence as one of the most intriguing aspects of the plot, Sultry manages to give a very thoughtful account of the governmental negligence that has historically affected Rio’s favelas. According to Amnesty International, Vila Autódromo’s residents were victims of human rights abuses, not only because of the forced evictions, but also for the brutal treatment they received by the police during peaceful protests, in which they were attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets, or even arrested. Despite not always explicitly portraying these events, Sultry is successful in letting the feelings of powerlessness and outrage bleed into its semi-fictionalized narrative. Filmed between March and April 2016, the movie could not show how this story concluded, though. Unfortunately, by the end of July only twenty out of 700 families stayed in the community, living in government-built houses and enduring power cuts and interruption of services such as rubbish collection along the way. Besides Vila Autódromo, Sultry also addresses the uncontrollable real estate speculation the Olympics generated with Ana’s own housing problems. With this, it hints at how different social classes in the city were differently affected by the Olympics, and somehow differently treated by the authorities in this transitional period.

Watching Sultry at IFFR helped me to reconnect with my city, and I cannot deny that I was proud to see a Brazilian director being acclaimed in the Netherlands. Above all, it was refreshing to see a fiction drama bringing urgent issues about Rio to wider audiences, and with such sensitivity. The movie has its pitfalls – the unnecessary “CGI-ed” final scene being the main one, in my opinion – but these do not compromise its overall relevance. Following other socially engaged Brazilian movies such as The Second Mother (2015) and Aquarius (2016), Sultry demonstrates how the favelas can be represented in other ways rather than action-fuelled productions of which City of God (2002) and Elite Squad (2007) are remarkable examples. Hopefully many more films like Sultry will come – not only to appease my nostalgia, but more importantly to raise awareness about the social struggles in Brazil.

Blog by Rosa Schavione 

Walking past one of the many souvenir shops in Grassmarket, Edinburgh, I could hear the thudding sound of something that can only be described as dance bagpipe music. If the cashmere sweaters and tartan fabrics filling the shop windows of the highly touristic street did not already give away that I was in Scotland, this terrible yet catchy mixture of music genres definitely would.

It was also a nice introduction to the subject of my first field trip for the Worlds of Imagination project and with that, my first ever experience as a researcher in the field. Focusing on Danny Boyle’s film adaptation(s) of Irvine Welsh’ Trainspotting, I set out to explore the different representations of Edinburgh in film tourism to pivotal Trainspotting locations, from the iconic sprinting scene through Old Town to Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park which was featured in the 2016’s sequel T2. During this exploration, which took place a couple weeks ago, I did not find any conclusive answers that could answer my research questions definitely. However, in hindsight, I could not help but notice a particular duality that seems to mark my first experiences of field work; the well-known expectations versus reality dichotomy.

For instance, in the first few months of my PhD trajectory I made a schedule with deadlines for my first case study. According to this schedule, I should have been finished with collecting data and making a start on my analysis at this very moment. Yet here I am, still in the phase of changing my research focus and altering my framework appropriately. It is safe to say that my expectations were overly ambitious. Unrealistic, one might even argue. In a similar vein, I went to Edinburgh with a plan, expecting to focus solely on Trainspotting, talking to Trainspotting fans and tour guides. Faced with the reality of it, I saw how Trainspotting seems to be part of a bigger assemblage of media narratives set in Edinburgh, which appear to be coherently deployed by local and national tourist organisations in attracting domestic and overseas visitors to Edinburgh [see VisitScotland’s Film map]. This instigated me to think about the role of these different, often contrasting narratives, from Trainspotting to Cloud Atlas to One Day (interestingly enough all film adaptations of novels), how they interrelate in constructing the identity of Edinburgh. And just like that, I stumbled upon an alternative worth investigating.

There is a parallel to be found in the phenomenon of film tourism itself. Previous scholars on film tourism have written about the exact moment in which the film tourist sees the place that was featured in their beloved series of film with their own eyes for the first time, i.e. the clash (or in a more optimistic instance, convergence) of the diegetic or textual world with the material one. Tourists and fans alike generate different responses to this encounter, such as appropriating the reality of the place into their understanding of the film or series (“making it their own”), or, as the other side of the coin, challenging it. As I was climbing Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park, a somewhat oddly situated but nonetheless wonderful hill very close to the city centre, I found myself in the second category; it was difficult for me to picture the hill as the place where Renton and Spud shared a moment of reflection in T2 as it was rainy and crowded that day, unlike in the film. Likewise, with chain stores like Marks & Spencer filling up the street and masses of people shopping, it was tough imagining Princess Street as the site where our “heroes” memorably run to Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life.

Although these reflections have not brought me any findings, they did lead me to some interesting insights which I have come to value. With the fear of exhausting the theme of parallels, similar to how film tourists are able to “appropriate” sites, adapting themselves along the way, I am appropriating what I have found the past couple of weeks into building and adjusting my research accordingly. Moreover, being confronted head-on with my own double role of researcher and film tourist/fan has made me more aware of my own presence in this research and the implications of that. It is with these new understandings that I am joyfully planning my second fieldwork for the new year, prepared with a fresh round of altered expectations, openness and most importantly, adaptability.

Blog by Stijn Reijnders (photo by Jan Arsenovic)

On the 9th of November, Abby Waysdorf successfully defended her dissertation. She did a great job. She was very gentle, eloquent and to-the-point in answering the questions raised by the committee members Matt Hills, Cornel Sandvoss, Rebecca Williams, Eggo Mueller, Koen van Eijck and Jeroen Jansz.

Most questions touched upon the conceptual level of Abby’s dissertation. For example, questions were raised concerning the concept of the ironical imagination (“is there imagination without irony in the case of film tourism?”) and the hyperdiegetic mode of the film tourist experience (“can you understand the hyperdiegetic without having analyzed the diegetic”?). In addition, we discussed the pros and cons of the well-known metaphor of “media pilgrimage”, of which Abby is rather sceptical. According to her, the notion of “media pilgrimage” is mainly suitable as an emic concept – when used in the field by respondents. Another debate touched upon the usefulness of the somewhat restricted concept of “film tourism” in an age of multi-media and media convergence.

For me this was a very special moment, as Abby is the first PhD student to receive her doctorate under my supervision. On a more personal level, I was also touched by the idea that only two months earlier, my father – who is an emeritus professor specialized in ecology and management of marine mammals – guided his final PhD student through the same academic ritual. The topic, however, somewhat differed: Sophie Brasseur’s dissertation was entitled “Seals in motion. How movements drive population development of harbour seals and grey seals in the North Sea”. As far as I understood, these seals were not driven by imaginations and story worlds – though I guess one never knows for sure.

After Abby’s defence, I was allowed to deliver a short, celebratory speech – the so-called ‘laudatio’. The text of the speech will be attached below, as it provides a nice idea of the kind of research that is being done by our research group in general, and by Abby in particular.

Laudatio Abby

Very learned doctor Waysdorf: it’s a privilege and a pleasure to congratulate you with your new degree, also on behalf of your second promotor Liesbet van Zoonen. Congrats also to Richard and Julie Waysdorf, who are here all the way from Denver, and to your many friends and colleagues gathered here today. I would also like to thank the professors Cornell Sandvoss, Matt Hills, Rebecca Williams, Eggo Mueller, Jeroen Jansz and Koen van Eijck for their willingness to participate in this committee and their active role in the ceremony.

Today I’m standing here before you as a proud supervisor. And I’m proud for three reasons. Firstly, it prides me that today we have seen the defence of the first dissertation on film tourism at any Dutch university. Secondly, I’m proud because of the particular content of this dissertation and the contribution it makes to this field of research. Finally, and this is of course what makes me most proud of all, is the fact that today Abby has defended her dissertation in style and has received her well-deserved PhD. Let me elaborate these aspects one by one.

As most of you are probably aware, Abby’s research is part of a larger project, entitled “Locating Imagination. An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Literary, Film and Music Tourism”. This project, funded by the Dutch Science Foundation, aimed to analyse and compare how literature, film and music – each in their own way – stimulate the imagination and literally move people around the globe. In recent years we have witnessed a boom in this type of tourism. Stories from the media have become a dominant force in the way in which people envision the world and to which places or cities they feel attached to. But up until now, most research on film tourism has been limited to individual, eye-catching examples. This fragmented and isolated research makes it very difficult to generate more fundamental, overarching theories.

Abby ‘s dissertation Placing Fandom is one of the first larger and more fundamental publications that offers a broader picture of what film tourism is about. Abby dives deep into one of the core questions of the phenomenon: why are people interested in visiting film locations and how do they experience being ‘there’? This brings us to the second point of my laudatio: I’m not only proud of the fact that this dissertation has seen the light. I’m also very pleased by its particular content. Now, in order to explain this, I think I need to start with the question: what drives Abby?

Abby, in my view it’s quite obvious: your heart is firmly located in the world of fandom. You simply love every aspect of fan culture. For example, I remember the party we once had in my place, and you agreed to join the party but only on one condition: that you could crash on my couch and watch your favourite show: the Eurovision Song Contest. You were literally glued to the screen. And because of your enthusiasm we got pleasantly stuck as well. I think that you feel a lot of commitment not only to fans themselves, but also to fan scholars. This niche academic community has become one of your second homes.

Part of the success of this dissertation is due to the fact that you didn’t hide or ignore your affiliation with fandom. You decided to combine this new topic of film tourism with your already existing expertise in fan studies. This combination of film tourism with fan studies provided a rich contribution to both fields. On the one hand you showed how one can’t properly understand the motives and experiences of film tourists if one doesn’t understand their love for the related media product. It all starts with fandom. On the other hand, you have made fan scholars more aware of the spatial dimension of fandom. You showed how the existence of so-called “places of the imagination” can anchor fandom. Fan communities can gather online or in anonymous fan convention halls, but having a real place (like Portmeiron in the case of The Prisoner fans) does make a crucial difference in solidifying fan culture.

Finally, I would like to spend some words on perhaps the most important reason why this is a memorable day. Today you have received your PhD and you have become “doctor”. This moment is the final closure of a period of four years in which we have worked together closely. Together we have gone through important but sometimes also challenging moments. For example, the first case study had some hiccups and made you aware that you still needed to further develop your interview skills. But over the years you gained more confidence and greatly improved your technique. Likewise, in the mid-phase of the project, you were struggling with getting your first papers published. But this problem was solved as well. And now, on the day of your defence, you can already boast three papers publications in prestigious journals, as well as a couple of second-author texts. That is definitely something to be proud of!

In addition to the challenges we faced and overcame, we also had a lot of fun, together with Nicky, Leonieke and the other PhDs candidates. Memorable are our joint conference trips to Brugge and Prague. As well as our brainstorm events closer to home: on Texel. Only last month, on one of the coldest and wettest weekends of the year, you, Emiel and Balazs endured the cold and took a dive in the North Sea. I guess that moment (the dive into the silver-blue surface of the North Sea) more or less characterizes you and your role in our research group. You have always been a very warm, active and contributing team member not afraid of a challenge.

Your path here has brought you to an impressive array of places: born in Washington, you spent your teens in Denver, did your Bachelor in Seattle and your Master in Utrecht. And today you have received your PhD in Rotterdam. Your academic background is diverse as well: you were raised in the humanities, but here in Rotterdam you learned all the ins and outs of the social sciences. This rich mixture of roots and disciplines is a very strong asset that makes you employable for many different areas. Thus, I foresee a bright future for you, hopefully (for a while at least) here with us in Rotterdam, but I trust you to be able to make a mark anywhere on the globe. Time will only tell where. For now, I would once again like to congratulate you with your excellent dissertation and the way you defended it today. Abby, very learned doctor Waysdorf: mission completed. Let’s celebrate!

Blog by Apoorva Nanjangud

I have spent the past one year in The Netherlands trying to become aware of my surroundings, learning from them and binding them with my current research. The kind of conversations and experiences I have had with the different yet familiar sights and sounds, has made me aware of a body of knowledge that eluded my attention all this while. 

When I first came to The Netherlands, I must admit I knew very little about the Dutch colonial history, the indenture system, how India was also a part of it at one point (and continues to be!) It was intriguing to find myself occasionally listening to Bollywood songs being played at ethnic stores or community parties –or that Divali (not Diwali, as I was used to spelling it) was being celebrated in The Netherlands with a lot of pomp and joy. These were not just a subject of my initial naive fascination, but digging deeper into it exposed me to a world full of possibilities, and I saw immense potential for research. I sincerely wanted to know, to enquire, and to assimilate the Dutch-Hindustani community that I had identified and identified with. So much so, that I drew it into my first case study.

My current research on Bollywood tourism taps into how people from the Indo-Caribbean Hindustani diaspora identify with and experience places from the comfort of their homes, relying on their imaginative prowess-In other words the act of arm-chair travel. Studying the Dutch Hindustani diaspora (as they are alternatively called) is of particular interest to me for two reasons: One, because of their unique formation underpinning a complex post-colonial context that sets them in three starkly different cultural contexts at the same time viz. Indian, Caribbean, and the Dutch and two, because the identity of the people from this group stems from these aforementioned contexts, which further accentuates the question of how and in what ways they maintain strong ties with their Indian roots, 3 countries and 3 generations later.

My field work involved visiting various cities in the Netherlands, talking to the people of the Hindustani community, about how they were introduced to India and to what extent Bollywood films inspired them to travel to their ‘distant homeland’. The more I engaged in these conversations, the more I identified with them, with their yearning for their roots, and its reflections on their current ways of life.

As a part of my fieldwork I recently went to interview a radio presenter at a popular Hindustani radio station at Den Haag. It was one of the oldest radio stations which continue to play popular Hindi music (aka Bollywood music) and engaging the diasporic audiences in familiar languages of Urdu and Hindi. For years they have been preserving popular culture from India, which was evident from what I saw in that space. Bollywood- call it a product or an industry resonates with the diaspora, as it gives them “something to hang on to” and I saw lot of those notions come alive during my visit.

I reached there on time, and waited for my respondent who was engaged in his show. While I waited, I grasped what was going on in that little two studio space of the radio station. On the outset, it was a very simple space, but bursting with so much color and so much Bollywood, that my brain couldn’t fathom. I knew that Bollywood was a “thing” of popular consumption, but to see them ‘preserve’ it was a pleasant surprise. It wasn’t state-of-the-art as most radio stations I have seen, but it was a kind of space which was lovingly maintained by a relentless team. I saw lot of interested and passionate people work in the studio who put a lot of time and effort into running this Radio channel. I saw pictures of my favorite singers from Mohammed Rafi, to Mukesh, and Lata Mangeshkar from the ‘Golden Era’ of the 1950’s and 1960’s to the 1990’s where the walls adorned posters of Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan and their contemporaries. It felt like a slice of Bombay in the Netherlands to me, where there was so much concentration of elements I identified, or rather had grown up with. It took me back to my daily post-dinner ritual I shared with my father of listening to songs from the black and white era, and humming along with them.

My respondent arrived and I snapped out of my train of thought. He very kindly took me around the entire studio to give me a glimpse of what they have been doing for years together and also asserted how Bollywood is really central to their community. He also spoke interesting things about how they do programming, the slot scheduling, and also the reach of the radio station. As I walked around the studio, I grasped even more the passion that seethed through the walls of the tiny studio. What I knew in theory was so much for real, I thought. I saw a room full of records and CD’s even from before I was born- a real treasure trove.

I finished my fruitful interview for my project with the radio presenter and to my surprise he invited me to be interviewed live on the radio! While on one hand it was thrilling, I also saw it as a suited venue to explain to a larger audience what I was really doing with my project since it would reach a dedicated audience base of the Hindustani diaspora in the Netherlands. The questions in this spontaneous interview mostly dealt with my background, my project, and my experiences in The Netherlands and was conducted in a mix of Hindi and English. They were quite elated to hear about my affiliation with the innovative ERC project- Worlds Of Imagination and wished me success for my future quest.

Someone had once asked me what drove me so interested in this research, and I remember retorting almost immediately, “I enjoy researching the diaspora, because they’re me, and I am them.“