PAD.MA – is an online archive of densely text-annotated video material, primarily footage and not films. The entire collection is searchable and viewable online, and is free to download for non- commercial use. We see PAD.MAas a way of opening up a set of images, intentions and effects present in video footage, that conventions of video- making, editing and spectatorship  have tended to suppress.

This is our first call for fellowships and we would like to connect with people from diverse backgrounds and interests, who like to work creatively on video, film, digital and offline archives or collections.  We are offering two types of fellowships.
The first is a call to work with online video, writing about video and film, and creative combinations of the two. The second is a call for those interested in research and writing on early film histories in India.
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1. Pad.ma Fellowship for Experiments with Video Archives  
Over the last 4 years, through many contributions from groups and individuals, Pad.ma has built a growing collection of documentary footage, contemporary art video, cinema, performing and classical arts, lectures, long interviews and so on. We now want to open the archive up to collaborations, video contributions from surprising and disparate sources, experiments in writing about, displaying and sharing video.
We invite proposals for fellowships with Pad.ma, especially those interested in working with video and archives in the following ways
–        Writing on existing footage in the archive: Many essays on Pad.ma are a commentary on a set of videos, or link disparate videos in collections.  See examples at http://essays.pad.ma
–        Contribution of an existing collection of videos to Pad.ma: The contribution can be of a specific set of videos that are linked thematically, or sourced from a project such as documentary films or existing archives. An example of this is Kolar Gold Fields footage sourced from the film ‘After the Gold'(J.Nair). See https://pad.ma/grid/title/project==Kolar%20Gold%20Fields%20and%20Mines The project proposal must include transcription and annotation of videos, where possible extended to a written essay.
–        Software development: Pad.ma is always looking for programmers – amateurs or professionals – who are interested in extending the software behind Pad.ma (http://pan.do/ra), or who might want to use the Pad.ma API (http:/pad.ma/api) to build interesting applications.
–        Pad.ma also invites general scholarship on material from early film archives, the Internet Archive’s moving image library, and other offline sources. We also encourage research and exploratory writing on popular and mass cultures online, that culls from Youtube and other online video platforms. These materials can be drawn together from diverse sources – an example in Pad.ma is the collection of the Radia tapes that are recordings of conversations between power brokers and media houses that were leaked to the public. The collection can be used for analysis, investigative journalism, but also as a script for a play or film. See https://pad.ma/grid/title/list==zi:The%20Radia%20Tap%28e%29s
Duration of Fellowship: 6 Months
Remuneration
: 15,000 per month over 6 months, to be disbursed in 3 installments
The fellowship will commence in September, 2012 and will culminate in a seminar-workshop in February, 2012 for the Pad.ma fellows. Maximum number of fellows chosen will be 8.
Please apply with a statement of your research interest (1 page or 500 word outline) and plan for the fellowship and a copy of your CV. You can also send a writing sample and additional links to videos, images and other files, using host services such as http://hostb.org. We may require a meeting in Mumbai or Bengaluru before final decision on the proposals.
The fellowship is open for non-Indian participants, but funding for travel to workshop and other travel, if required, has to be raised separately. Applicants can be of any educational or disciplinary background.
Last date of submission of proposals: 1st August, 2012
Date for deciding proposals: 24th August, 2012
Write to Namita A. Malhotra: [email protected]
2. Pad.ma Research Fellowship in Film Histories
While the focus of Pad.ma thus far has primarily been on footage, we would like to open Pad.ma out to an exploration of film studies, history and technology. Technology does not merely change the way films are made or seen, but also the way that it is studied, and film studies has travelled a long way from the time that one had to make notes in the dark to the control over the temporal flow of the film brought by video. Through this fellowship  we are interested in exploring the possible futures of film studies when it meets new technologies and the internet which allows for different ways in which we can categorize, retrieve and write about the moving image.
Celebrating forty years of copyright-free cinema in (1952 being the current threshold) amidst the hundred years of Indian cinema this year, we intend to upload pre-1952 films on to Pad.ma  and open them out to future collaborations with film historians and scholars. Fellows are encouraged to apply with a statement of their research interests, the films that they would like to work with on pad.ma and the kind of materials around the film that they would bring into conversation with the film.
Duration of Fellowship: 6 Months (with a possible extension to a year subject to future funding)
Remuneration
: 15,000 per month over 6 months, to be disbursed in 3 installments
Maximum number of fellows chosen will be 4. There will be additional fellowships administered via Jadavpur University Media Lab, and the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
There will be a board of mentors including leading film scholars who will guide the independent fellows. There will also be a workshop at the beginning and the end of the fellowship period.
Please apply with a statement of your research interest and plan for the fellowship, a copy of your CV and one sample piece of writing. You can also send a writing sample and additional links to videos, images and other files, using host services such as http://hostb.org. We may require a meeting in Mumbai or Bengaluru before a final decision on the proposals.
Last date of submission of proposals: 1st August, 2012
Date for deciding proposals: 24th August, 2012
Write to Lawrence Liang: [email protected]