Women filmmakers, forgotten histories and cultural legacies take centre stage on Day 2 of Hyderabad Literary Festival 2026

The speech of ideas gathered momentum connected the 2nd time of the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2026 connected Sunday with conversations spanning cinema, history, assemblage creation and taste heritage, earlier culminating successful a multilingual theatrical performance.

The time began with a sheet treatment titled ‘Reversing The Lens: Women Making Cinema’ featuring filmmakers Tanuja Chandra and Paromita Vohra successful speech with writer and movie professional Sangeetha Devi Dundoo. The treatment examined sex practice wrong the movie manufacture and the request for structural alteration down the camera.

Speaking during the session, Ms.Chandra said women should comprise astatine slightest 50% of the workforce successful filmmaking. Reflecting connected her aboriginal years successful the industry, she recalled that movie sets were mostly male-dominated and lacked adjacent basal facilities for women, similar due bathrooms. “But today, you consciousness that your thought volition beryllium heard,” she said.

Ms.Vohra underlined the value of equality successful creator spaces, observing that originative environments necessitate greater sensitivity and playfulness. “Art needs tenderness and a consciousness of fun, which sometimes comes from moving distant from rigid notions of masculinity,” she added.

Another session, ‘Marg Presents Indian Tattoos: Only Skin Deep?’, featured Mo Naga and Shatabdi Chakrabarti successful speech with taste theorist and creation professional Nancy Adajania. The treatment traced the past of tattooing successful India, noting that the signifier dates backmost astir 10,000 years. Speakers highlighted that portion tattooing has, implicit the past decade, go associated with municipality lifestyles, it is neither a Western import nor a caller taste improvement successful the country.

The absorption past shifted to past with a league titled ‘Hyderabad: September 1948’ featuring Afsar Mohammad and Zeenath Khan, moderated by writer Serish Nanisetti. Mr.Afsar spoke astir the interaction of the 1948 Police Action connected Dakhni civilization and said his publication documents testimonies from 150 witnesses. He questioned why, contempt extended documentation of Partition, determination remains comparatively small worldly connected the Police Action successful Hyderabad. Ms.Khan said she was motivated to constitute her publication due to the fact that overmuch of Indian past penning is centred connected bluish narratives, leaving events specified arsenic the Hyderabad Police Action comparatively underexplored.

In the league ‘Kashmiriyat – Craft, Legacy and Cultural Heritage of the Valley’, Manish Saksena and Sameer Hamdani reflected connected the Valley’s layered past and artisanal traditions. Saksena described Srinagar arsenic a metropolis wherever the past and contiguous coexist, and noted the region’s economical dependence connected handcrafted and handmade crafts. Hamdani spoke astir humanities ties betwixt Kashmir and Hyderabad and added that the crafts of Kashmir embody the ethos of tehzeeb.

The time concluded with a 60-minute theatrical show titled ‘Kavitam Oka Teerani Daaham’, which blended poesy with theatrical expression.