This book explores Indian animation, a sector in rapid transition. Major studios have built international reputations through outsourcing and co-production, while smaller studios and independent filmmakers increasingly create original content for TV, streaming platforms and festivals. Alongside these visible transformations in the industry, artisanal and ethnographic animation have also flourished.  India Animated: Essays on Contemporary Practice  examines key ways in which practices and preoccupations in India are shifting. Distinctive postcolonial approaches are the focus of this volume, which foregrounds the inventive animation works of filmmakers in recent decades. Substantial essays consider the conception, production and marketing of animated works, alongside a selection of interviews that provide a vivid, granular sense of creative processes. Indian animation remains largely overlooked in both public discourse and scholarly research. This volume addresses that absence by examining the region's pluriform practices and their broader implications for animation studies.

"From before the nation building animations of Films Division to the child god franchises of post-liberalization India, this book introduces global readers for the first time to the old and new revolutions shaping India's varied animation sector.  As the editors note, domestic animation has been treated as the 'proverbial poor cousin' of the nation's booming live action industry and Western imports. Drawing together practitioners, scholars, and animators from around the world, this pioneering anthology finally sets the record straight, revealing the breadth, depth and rich diversity of Indian animation. Bravo!"
- Dr. Priya Jaikumar , Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

This volume brings sustained scholarly attention to the evolving and often underrepresented field of Indian Animation. Situating it within postcolonial frameworks, contributors trace key transitions, from outsourced production for global studios to independent, artisanal and ethnographic practices. Through critical essays and practitioner interviews, the collection explores wide-ranging processes of creation and circulation, highlighting the sector's exciting heterogeneity and its significance for rethinking the parameters of animation studies.

 
Timothy Jones  is Associate Professor of Media Arts and Director of the Academic Media Center at Robert Morris University, USA. His work on animation, education, and industry appears in journals such as  Animation Practice ,  Process & Production ,  Animation Studies  and  Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal , as well as in the edited collections  Reconceptualizing Film Policies  (2018) and  Animation and Advertising  (2019). Tim contributes regularly to  Animation Studies 2.0 , and co-hosts the podcast  Spirited Animation .

Anitha Balachandran  is a filmmaker, researcher and adjunct professor of animation at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, India. Her work engages with visual culture, media history, and the intersections of illustration, image-making, and animation within transcultural contexts. Anitha's writing has been published in the  Journal of Illustration ,  Imago: Studi di cinema e media ,  Animation Practice, Process & Production ,  Animation Studies 2.0,  and the  Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Animation Studies .