INDIAN SUMMERS

We revise the term cultural imperialism and the issues and debates surrounding this concept. We watch the trailer for C4's Indian Summers as an example of the British Raj in action. Why is there a continued interest in this historical period before home rule in India? How is the audience positioned in relation to the different cultural identities? 

As background (not for inclusion in our exam), I introduce the ideas of the novelist E.M Forster ("only connect") and the films of Merchant Ivory.
 

Yasmin sets out to dramatise why British Muslims felt alienated in British society post 11 September 2001. Yasmin touches similar ground to Loach's Ae Fond Kiss (which dealt with a love affair between a Muslim and a Catholic in Glasgow) and Hanif Kureishi's My Son the Fanatic (about a Pakistani taxi driver who has an affair with a white prostitute, and whose son becomes an Islamic fundamentalist). It explores the cultural dilemmas of Muslims in post-9/11 Britain: the film's younger Asian characters are tempted by western society with all its secular joys and perils but, because of rising Islamophobia, are pushed from that milieu into the comforting world of traditional Islamic society or, frighteningly, fundamentalist terror.

We revised the approach of Stuart Hall on reception theory : preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings. Beaufoy's and Glenaan's intention is to position the reader as feeling growing sympathy for the female protagonist and for the Muslim community. 

However, Yasmin failed to achieve cinematic release in the UK. Why? Yasmin has been released in cinemas in France, Germany, Brazil and Switzerland, and is likely to be distributed in Holland, Belgium and Italy. It garnered positive reviews at Edinburgh and Venice, won an audience award at the Festival of British film at Dinard and an Ecumenical Prize in Locarno, Switzerland. Yesterday Panjabi was chosen as Britain's representative in a key European showcase for upcoming actors at next month's Berlin film festival.
Why, then, has Yasmin not received a British cinematic release? Is it not an indictment of the frivolity of the UK's film-going culture that Yasmin will only be shown tonight on Channel 4, while the rest of western Europe can see it on the big screen?
"The thing is," says Sally Hibbin, "after we finished filming in June we showed it but couldn't get a UK film distributor interested. It was only after we got the award at Dinard that we managed to get a distribution deal." Ironic: it took a French audience to get British distributors interested in a British film.
That deal was with Verve Pictures, a small company that distributes British independent films. "The problem was, they couldn't find an opening at cinemas for a long while. And that wasn't good enough for us, because the film is clearly very topical and any delay would weaken its impact. So we went to Channel 4. I think there is a nervousness about how this kind of film will play at the British box office."