The transnational tales of an Indian creative producer: the case of Guneet Monga

ABSTRACT Studies of Indian cinema have traditionally placed more emphasis on directors, stars, aesthetics and issues of ideology than on the practices of creative producers. Although these are important concerns, the role of Indian producers deserves careful scholarly attention, especially in the context of transnational film projects, where producers are often involved from the pre-development stage through production and distribution. To address this problem, this article examines the production stories of an Indian creative producer, Guneet Monga (1983-), who is well-known for setting up Indian-European co-productions that deviate from contemporaneous spectacle-driven mainstream Bollywood productions. Through an in-depth personal interview with the producer herself and insights from film and media production studies, this article demonstrates how Monga’s micro-production stories reveal larger creative and collaborative practices that are transforming India’s independent film production culture and making it more transnational. This article shows that producers––the least researched figure in Indian film scholarship––gain several navigational tactics through transnational co-productions such as telling tales of tenacity, hustling and interpersonal networking, among others. These tactics, in turn, challenge the precarious conditions of working in the Bollywood-dominated film culture of India.