Social Aesthetics and The Doon School: Page 1

Doon School Chronicles is an intimate study of India's most prestigious boys' boarding school. Sometimes called ‘the Eton of India,’ Doon School has nevertheless developed its own distinctive style and presents a curious mixture of privilege and egalitarianism. It was established by a group of Indian nationalists in the 1930s to produce a new generation of leaders who would guide the nation after Independence. Since then it has become highly influential in the creation of the new Indian elites and has come to epitomize many aspects of Indian postcoloniality.

Filmed over a two-year period, the film looks at the life of Indian middle-class boys as they experience the effects of institutional, national, and global pressures during the transitional years from childhood to adulthood. The film explores the ‘social aesthetics’ and ideology of the school through its rituals, the physical environment it has created, and its effects upon several boys of different ages and temperaments. It is divided into ten ‘chapters,’ each headed by a text taken from school documents.

"An extraordinarily insightful and intimate exploration of the social and cultural landscape of India’s most elite boys’ boarding school. In following the boys’ daily routines and dramas, the film also affords us a rare glimpse at processes of postcolonial Indian identity formation. This is a wonderful teaching tool that will enhance any course dealing with issues of adolescence, education, institutional structure and ‘habitus,’ or postcolonial elites. My students were stupefied by the eloquence, independence, and maturity of the Doon School boys." —Prof. Lucien Taylor, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Doon School Chronicles has been honoured at the following film festivals:

2001 Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris
2001 Association of Asian Studies, Chicago
2001 Freiburg Film Festival
2000 Margaret Mead Film Festival, New York
2000 Society for Visual Anthropology Film Festival, San Francisco
2000 RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film, London
2000 Beeld voor Beeld Festival, Amsterdam
2000 Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival

Read "Social Aesthetics and The Doon School" an article published in the Visual Anthropology Review which discusses the theoretical underpinnings of the project. View stills from the Video in Mela Ram's Photo Gallery

Technical Details:
Original video format: DVCAM
Available formats: DVCAM, Beta SP, DigiBeta, VHS
Color system: PAL
Sound: Stereo
Length: 143 minutes
Place of filming: Dehra Dun, India
Language: English
Dates of filming: 1997-99
Date of release: 2000

Credits:
Camera, sound, editing: David MacDougall
Post-production assistance: Ian Bryson
With thanks to: Sanjay Srivastava
A film by David MacDougall

Made with the assistance and cooperation of The Doon School and the
Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University

Biofilmography of Director:
David MacDougall was born in New Hampshire in the USA and now lives in Australia. He was educated at Harvard University and at the film school of the University of California at Los Angeles. His first major film, To Live with Herds, won the Grand Prix ‘Venezia Genti’ at the Venice Film Festival in 1972. His other films, many co-directed with Judith MacDougall, include a trilogy on the Turkana of northwestern Kenya comprising The Wedding Camels, Lorang's Way and A Wife Among Wives. From 1975 to 1987 he made twelve ethnographic documentaries with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, including Good-bye Old man (1976), Takeover (1979), Familiar Places (1980), Three Horsemen (1983) and Link-Up Diary (1987). In 1991, with Judith MacDougall, he made Photo Wallahs about local photographers in northern India. In 1992 he went to Sardinia to make Tempus de Baristas (1994) about three generations of mountain shepherds. Since 1997 he has been conducting a study of The Doon School in northern India. This will result in five films, the first being Doon School Chronicles (2000). He was one of the founders of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University, where he is currently an Australian Research Council Fellow and Convenor of the Program in Visual Research. He writes regularly on ethnographic and documentary film. A book of his essays, Transcultural Cinema, was published by Princeton University Press in 1998.

Distribution:

In India:
Enquiries should be addressed to The Headmaster, The Doon School.

In North America:
CMIL (Center for media and Independent Learning)
University of California Extension
2000 Center Street
Berkeley, CA 94704
Tel: (510) 642-0460
Fax: (510) 643-9271
Email: cmil@uclink.berkeley.edu
Website: www-cmil.unex.berkeley.edu/media/

In the UK:
RAI Video Sales
Royal Anthropological Institute
50 Fitzroy Street
London W1T 5BT
Tel: +44 171 387 0455
Fax: +44 171 383 4235
Email: videosales@therai.org.uk
Website: www. therai.org.uk/film/film.html

In Australia:
Ronin Films
PO Box 1005
Civic Square
Canberra ACT 2608
Tel: +61 2 6248 0851
Fax: +61 2 6249 1640
Email: orders@roninfilms.com.au
Website: www.roninfilms.com.au/

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