A 3-day international conference on Indian Cinema and Alternate Networks ICAN2-2018 was inaugurated by Delhi Metropolitan Education, Noida and Deakin University, Australia at Silver Oak Lawn, India Habitat Centre, Delhi on November 16, 2018. ICAN2 is a joint association of School of Creative Arts and Communication of Deakin University and DME Media School of DME.
The Chief Guest for the inaugural session was Mr. Satya Pal Singh, Minister of State for Human Resource Development for Higher Education. The Minister emphasized on how Indian Cinema plays a requisite role in developing a socialistic and secular country. Through this international conference, he expects all scholars and authors to establish the importance of ‘theme’ in films which can bring in a revolutionary change in Indian Cinema.
Dr. Sean Redmond, Professor of Deakin University presented his research on Romantic- Comedy of Indian Cinema. He emphasized on film ‘Raja Hindustani’, a classic Indian romantic film of Bollywood. He also shared his views on international market for films and box office collection of Bollywood Cinema.
The special guest for the evening was Mr. Vivek Vaswani, well-known film actor, writer, director, and producer. Many other eminent media professionals and academicians were also present in the inaugural programme.
This is the first conference on Indian cinema to be organized by an Australian University in collaboration with an Indian institute. The conference looks at various aspects of Indian cinema and how its reception, collaboration, and distribution have changed over the years. This will also focus on Australia-India cultural relationships.
The occasion was also graced by Mr. Vipin Sahni (Chairman, DME), Mrs. Kiran Sahni (Chairperson, DME) and Mr. Aman Sahni (Vice Chairman, DME) and Honorable Mr. Justice Bhanwar Singh (Director General, DME) extended their gratitude to Deakin University for their collaboration with DME to further promote the Australia- India relationship.
The next two days of the international conference will witness, presentation of research papers by scholars, academicians and student presenters from more than 15 states and more than 30 Indian media schools/universities. For ICAN2, 127 abstracts were submitted to DME out of which 105 abstracts were selected for printing and conference proceedings.