Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India

This book focuses attention on an aspect of India's dynamic and vibrant street art: billboard size advertisements, hand-painted for the entertainment cinema industry and local political parties, that unfurl mural-like across the urban landscape of Chennai, located in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, India. The making and consuming of this public art engenders a space for relay between film celebrities and political figures based on a visual cultural discourse of charisma.