Era of Serfdom

Era of Serfdom is a humanising collage of tragic sociopolitical realities as local as they are global. The film attempts to explore and contextualise the apathy that has seeped deep into the fabric of our everyday public life – in an environment of political subjugation, institutional capture, polarisation, and complete dominance of the ruling political class. Amidst a majoritarian milieu, in the absence of collectivity and solidarity, the film is a receipt in time – a document of alienation emerging from a place of vulnerability and hope. Through the juxtaposition of the preview-less analogue medium of 35mm film to curtail censorship, field recordings, and the documentation of the aggressive public display of demolition rule, the film becomes a visceral articulation of the time and place it represents, and yet transcends it.

  • Dimple Mishra
    Writer
    Another Day
  • Praagya Arya
    Cinematographer
  • Praagya Arya
    35mm Stills Photographer
  • Dimple Mishra
    Narrator
  • Praagya Arya
    Editor
    Another Day, Home and Hatred
  • Dimple Mishra
    Sound Recordist
    Home and Hatred
  • CPB Darkroom
    35mm Lab
  • iridos films
    Film Collective
    Another Day, Home and Hatred
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    दासता का दौर
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 58 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 30, 2026
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Hindi
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography

Dimple and Praagya are a filmmaker duo from India, who make independent, self-funded works under their filmmaking collective– iridos films. Their second film, an experimental documentary– Home and Hatred received a Special Jury Mention at Experimenta 2024, and has been exhibited at Fabrica Research Centre, Italy, TISS Mumbai, among other places. They are currently in the post production of their fourth film, an experimental fiction– Aana.

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Director Statement

A state with ₹5.06 Trillion of debt decides to not build or improve but dismantle and demolish the most successful and essential public transport infrastructure in its largest and wealthiest district, and no one bats an eye. Contextualising apathy has become an extremely normalised and tiresome part of our lives– public apathy, media ignorance, and the brutal power of the state to unilaterally take decisions with horrific long and short term consequences is unbearably depressing. This is not true of just public transport infrastructure in Indore, it is true in Gaza, in the latest decapitation strike and consequent war on Iran, and so on.

To witness and to document is to craft a receipt in time, of the horrors being inflicted upon millions, however small the violence. In the absence of political alliance, community, courage or sensitivity, all we could muster was to witness, document, and share our vulnerability. We often relied on 35mm film for documentation as it allowed us to evade persecution and censorship, without a screen to quickly preview the pictures, we were able to be a part of spaces where accountability was threatening.

The large scale attack on public infrastructure, rights and democracy can be attributed to the undying greed of the ruling political class, whose weaponised incompetence has wreaked havoc on many spheres of public life– education, employment, etc, leaving large sections of the public completely and utterly helpless, desensitised, and emotionally numb– unable and unwilling to fend for themselves.