On Oct. 22, Dr. Shekhar Deshpande, professor of media and communication, led “Everything Is Always in the Middle,” a discussion at the nonprofit arts organization Philadelphia Slought Foundation. Dr. Deshpande discussed Indian mythologies, marriage customs, and storytelling in Rati Chakravyuh, a film directed by Ashish Avikunthak, who was named a “Future Great” by ArtReview magazine in 2014. Avikunthak and Rahul Mukherjee, professor of cinema studies at the University of Pennsylvania, joined Deshpande in the discussion.

Edited as one long, continuous take, Rati Chakravyuh depicts a group of couples on their wedding night as they share stories drawn from Indian mythology and discuss life and death in what “is at once an ambitious cinematic experiment with the long take, and at the same time an examination of the possibilities of cultural storytelling,” according to the Slought Foundation.