As founder of Glasgow-based Momentum Films, Rakasree Basu has been selected to programme two official cultural events for the Commonwealth Games Glasgow 2026 Festival.
When Glasgow welcomes thousands of athletes, artists and visitors for the Commonwealth Games in 2026, the sporting spectacle will be accompanied by another celebration—one that unfolds not in stadiums but in community halls, cinemas and public spaces where stories, music and movement become instruments of cultural dialogue.
Among those shaping this parallel cultural narrative is Rakasree Basu, a Kolkata-born cultural leader whose work over the last few years has quietly transformed the conversation around South Asian representation in Scotland. As founder of Glasgow-based Momentum Films, Basu has been selected to programme two official cultural events for the Commonwealth Games Glasgow 2026 Festival, a milestone that reflects not only her growing influence within Scotland’s creative landscape but also the increasingly important role of the Indian diaspora in shaping public cultural life abroad.
For Basu, however, the recognition represents something far greater than an individual achievement. “The defining moment,” she says, “was arriving in Scotland and realising that experience does not automatically translate into belonging.”
Having spent more than a decade working across India’s creative industries—contributing to national cultural policy, international collaborations and film development—she arrived in Scotland in 2021 on the British Council India Creative Economy Scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Creative Industries and Cultural Policy at the University of Glasgow.
Instead of assuming that an accomplished professional career would naturally open doors, she encountered the realities familiar to many first-generation immigrants: rebuilding networks, understanding unfamiliar institutional structures and earning credibility from the ground up.
“You have to learn the landscape, build trust and prove the seriousness of your work all over again,” she reflects. “It became less about continuing what I had done in India and more about asking what was missing here.”
That question would come to define her work.
Before moving to Scotland, Basu had played a significant role in India’s cultural policy ecosystem. As a consultant with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, she contributed to the development of the Film Facilitation Office, helping create systems that made India more accessible to international productions through streamlined permissions, government coordination and policy frameworks.
Simultaneously, as curator of the Producers Workshop and Student Producers Workshop at NFDC’s Film Bazaar, she mentored emerging filmmakers while strengthening South Asia’s independent cinema ecosystem.
These experiences taught her that culture is sustained not merely by artists but by institutions. “My background taught me that culture cannot survive on talent alone,” she says. “It needs infrastructure.” That philosophy became the cornerstone of her work in Scotland.
Recognising that South Asian communities had long contributed to Scottish society but remained underrepresented within mainstream cultural institutions, Basu began building platforms that could facilitate lasting engagement rather than occasional visibility.
In 2025, she programmed Scotland’s first Indian Film Festival in partnership with the Consulate General of India in Edinburgh and Glasgow Film Theatre, creating a landmark space for Indian cinema within Scotland’s cultural calendar.
Soon after, she established the South Asians in Cinema Collective, a professional platform that connects filmmakers, programmers and screen practitioners while encouraging mentorship, collaboration and international exchange.
For Basu, festivals and screenings are only the visible expression of a much deeper ambition. “One-off events create visibility,” she explains. “Infrastructure creates continuity. Representation without infrastructure becomes ephemeral—it appears, is applauded and then disappears.”
Her belief that culture should be understood as long-term public infrastructure rather than isolated programming finds perhaps its fullest expression in the projects she is curating for the Commonwealth Games Glasgow 2026 Festival.
One initiative invites people from across Scotland to create short films reflecting on sport, migration, identity and belonging. Community organisations, sports clubs, families and individuals are encouraged to tell stories that might otherwise remain outside official narratives.
The second project, Ceilidh Meets Garba, offers an inspired cultural conversation by bringing together Scotland’s traditional Ceilidh and Gujarat’s Garba in a participatory celebration of dance, food and shared experience.
The timing is particularly symbolic. Following Glasgow in 2026, the Commonwealth Games will travel to Ahmedabad in 2030. “It is not simply about programming two events,” Basu says. “It is about creating a living conversation between two Commonwealth cities.”
She is equally careful to move beyond familiar clichés surrounding multiculturalism. “I have become thoughtful about the phrase ‘culture as a bridge’,” she observes. “A real bridge has to hold weight. It carries history, movement and sometimes discomfort. I’m interested in creating encounters where people step into each other’s rhythm—literally and culturally.”
Her reflections also reveal how migration has reshaped her own understanding of identity. “In India, I didn’t wake up every day thinking about being Indian,” she says. “In Scotland, my Indianness becomes much more visible. Belonging, for me, isn’t simply about being welcomed. It evolves through contribution. It is saying: I am not only here to be included in someone else’s idea of culture—I am here to help shape what culture means.”
That conviction has become increasingly relevant at a time when Scotland, like many societies, continues to negotiate questions of diversity, migration and national identity. Rather than viewing diaspora communities as audiences or beneficiaries, Basu sees them as active cultural authors capable of influencing institutions, public memory and civic life.
From policy corridors in New Delhi to community festivals in Glasgow, her journey reflects a new model of cultural leadership—one that moves effortlessly between government and grassroots initiatives, artistic practice and public policy, local engagement and international collaboration.
In doing so, Rakasree Basu represents a generation of cultural practitioners who understand that meaningful representation is not measured simply by presence but by participation, leadership and legacy. Through cinema, community storytelling and cultural diplomacy, she is helping reshape Scotland’s cultural landscape while demonstrating how immigrant voices can become integral to the evolving story of a nation.
In an age when borders often dominate political discourse, Basu’s work offers a compelling reminder that culture continues to travel freely—creating new conversations, new communities and, ultimately, new ways of belonging.
*Murtaza Ali Khan is an award-winning cultural critic, journalist, and academic. A jury member for the 69th & 70th National Film Awards, he has covered entertainment for The Hindu, The Sunday Guardian, and The Quint since 2008, with over 2,000 TV appearances as a media expert. He is also a film festival curator, translator of Hindujas and Bollywood, and a NETqualified journalism educator.
