India's 'indigenous' cinemas: a village video night and the future of Santal 'traditional' dances

South Asia is at present experiencing – beyond an assumed media dominance of Bollywood – the growing circulation of popular film in approximately one hundred diff erent ‘indigenous’ languages. The culture of film viewing is explored here by means of an ethnographic fi eld study in a village in Mayurbhanj (Odisha), whereby the complex interplay between VCD films and everyday life is described. Through an interview with a Santali fi lm director, the contradiction of ideas about ‘indigenous’ media are emphasized.