Film History Researcher at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI)

Awarded an NFAI fellowship for his book on early Bengali cinema.

Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti is a scholar specializing in South Asian cinema and popular culture. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English, as well as a doctoral degree in Cultural Studies.

In his youth, Baidurya explored documentary filmmaking, published "little magazines," and created essays and poetry in Bengali and English—all while working in the ITES industry. Eventually, he dedicated himself to academic research, earning a master’s degree in English Literature and Cultural Studies with distinction from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. His doctoral studies were supervised by the esteemed Professor M. Madhava Prasad, whose seminal work The Ideology of Hindi Cinema: A Historical Construction remains foundational to Indian film studies.

During his PhD, Baidurya served as a research and teaching assistant to Professor Colin MacCabe, a renowned British film theorist, producer, and former editor of Screen and Critical Quarterly. He also worked as a Film History Researcher at Indiancine.ma, a project archiving and annotating South Asian cinema, and taught underprivileged rural students for a year at Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Nuzvid, Andhra Pradesh.

His doctoral research, Mapping the Ideological Terrain of Contemporary Bollywood, offers a critical lens on the industry’s ideological framework. He later gained experience in academic publishing as a copyeditor for prestigious houses like Orient BlackSwan.

Before joining RV University Bangalore’s School of Film, Media, and Creative Arts as an Assistant Professor, Baidurya headed the Media and Communication Program at Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication (SCMC), Pune. There, he designed filmmaking and film studies curricula, mentored award-winning student films, managed studio facilities, and guided faculty.

With nearly seven years of postdoctoral teaching experience and over a decade of professional expertise, Baidurya specializes in film studies, filmmaking, and cultural studies. His academic scope includes creative writing, academic writing, and research methodology. He teaches courses as part of the Indian Film Studies Program, a collaboration between the National Film Archive of India and Savitribai Phule Pune University.

His research appears in authoritative, peer-reviewed, Scopus-indexed journals like South Asian Film and Media Studies and university press anthologies. He has contributed a chapter on "Masculine Sexuality in South Asian Cinema" to the upcoming Routledge Handbook of South Asian Cinema (2025). Additionally, he founded and convenes the Pramana Media Studies Conference at SCMC.

Research Interests:

Film theory and criticism, internet studies, psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, and the intersections of regionalism and language. He maintains close ties with the film industry and a growing alumni network.