Films and Feminism: Essays in Indian Cinema explores both mainstream and parallel cinema for an analysis of the woman image, the idea of romance, the imposition and defiance of patriarchal order and a woman’s journey towards self-definition. Films reach a wider audience than literature as they move across the barriers of class, literacy, religion and even language. Not only do they reflect reality, they also construct reality. Their reach and impact makes it imperative to work through the rhetoric and melodrama of the medium to unearth the subtleties and ambiguities which lie within. Film technique has both borrowed from and contributed to literary aesthetics. The twenty-four essays in the present volume, written by scholars of literature, sociology, philosophy, political science, history and film-making highlight these interconnections. Largely focusing on Hindi cinema, the essays reflect a representation of Bengali and Kannada cinema as well. The volume makes a significant contribution to film, gender and literary studies as it opens up multiple dimensions of inquiry.