Not Just Roads

Documentary Feature | Hindi with English subtitles | India | Nitin Bathla & Klearjos Papanicolaou

A massive urban transformation is underway in India, with highways being built at a rapid 23 kilometers per day under the Bharatmala program. This aims to open new territories for the emerging middle class. Criss-crossed by native trails and ecological commons, this film captures the story of one such highway outside Delhi from the perspective of both human and non-human actors.

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About the Filmmaker

Nithin Batla was born in 1986 in India. 2004-09 Bachelor of Architecture. 2012-13 Master of Advanced Studies, Urban Design, at ETH Zürich. Architect, artist, and educator currently pursuing Doctoral Studies at ETH Zurich. His work focuses on labor migration, land ecology, and housing in the extended urban region of Delhi. Aside from academic writing, he works on films, community art projects, and social design projects.

About the Filmmaker

Born in 1989, Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou is a Greek/Mexican filmmaker interested in ethnography as a filmmaking methodology. His films and collaborations include 'The Seven Sisters Indoor Market' (2016), 'The Disappearance of Robin Hood' (2018), and 'Not Just Roads' (2020). He is currently based in Zürich, where he teaches ethnographic filmmaking at the urban scale at the ETHZ.