Dignitaries including the Nizam of Hyderabad gather to celebrate the Durbar in honour of George V, who arrives by boat in Bombay.
A documentary about human-powered manual ferris wheel rides at Juhu beach in Mumbai.
Lord Louis Mountbatten arrives in India in March 1947 as Britain's Last Viceroy. He is committed to transfer administrative and authoritative power to an independent and sovereign India. Six months later India indeed was set free, but it had also been partitioned and overwhelmed by an orgy of sectarian violence involving Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.
Filmed in 1938, less than a decade before Indian independence, Delhi has a curious tale to tell. ‘Delhi’, the viewer is informed, ‘is the cockpit of the Indian Empire’, it provides the ‘gateway to the riches of the south’. The opening sections of the film focus upon those who have tried and failed to establish a lasting power in the capital. ‘At Delhi’, the commentator states, ‘successive cities have been built by conquering invaders – each has fallen into disuse and decay’. The camerawork focuses on the ‘impressive ruins’ of these earlier invaders. Although the film also depicts the enduring architecture of Muslim rulers, such as Akbar and Shahjahan, it is stressed that their power has been superseded. Legend has it that it will be the ninth city of Delhi that ‘will endure and will rule forever’. Shahjahan had built the eighth.
Life on the road in India, showing the traffic, people and animals.
Hindu temples at Benares and Belur and the mythologies associated with them.
The making of the James Bond movie Octopussy (1983) in Udaipur, India during 1982.
Shot over three years, Pariah Dog paints a kaleidoscopic picture of the city of Kolkata, seen through the prism of four outsiders and the dogs they love. These men and women have found meaning and purpose in their shared mission to care for neglected street dogs, who have existed in the towns and villages of India for thousands of years. For some this mission is enough, for others, dreams of a better life are always near.
Ancient Explorer, Amish Shah travels to the west coast of India in search of an ancient submerged city. With a passion for the truth, he stumbles into a cover up and in this film, he goes public with what he found.
A Dream Trip Across India Some kilometers from Bombay, the Indian megalopolis, lost on a hill of Bollywood, is the grandiose set of a vast temple with a magical touch, reminiscent at the same time of an Indian shrine and an ancient Inca temple. Inside, Ten Ford Mustangs are waiting. Ten Ford Mustang with an incredible pedigree: Bullitt GT390, Shelby GT500, Shelby GT500 KR 1968... the deep sound of a gong resounds, the doors of the templeopen launching the first edition of the Maharajah of the Road. At the wheel of the ten Ford Mustang, passionate people coming from all over the world: Indian, French, American, Italian, Lebanese... they are business men, automobile designers, manufacturers, artists… From Mumbai to Jodhpur, a 2.000 kilometres tour will lead our Mustangs through India. From the Rats Temple in Deshnoke city to the thousand-and-one palaces, the two princesses will show the Rajasthan to the adventurers of the road in an eventful trip...
RROMANI SOUL traces the true origin of the Rroma people. Through rituals, song and dance we follow emblematic figure and "Queen of the Gypsies" Esma Redzepova to Macedonia, south of France and finally to India. The film reveals for the first time ever that the true and unique origin of the Rroma is Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, India.
Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan looks to history and psychology as he delves into the possible reasons behind the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
The Unreserved is an inquiry into the lives of passengers who use the Unreserved Compartment, the cheapest way to travel across India on the Indian Railways system. The film portrays the passengers’ aspirations, efforts and opinions through conversations and personal stories.
Set in Varanasi, an ancient city of India, Tana Bana offers a rare look at the hidden world of Moslem weavers and Hindu traders and how their lives are interwoven through the production of the silk and the beauty it creates. However, as the technology advances, the trade is threatened by computerization and globalization.
Survivors of the Mumbai terrorist attacks tell the inside story of the actions and decisions that helped save their lives.
Director S. Sukhdev traveled the length of India to gather footage for his impressionistic portrait of the country in the year 1967. The film produces the same effect on the viewers as a month-long visit to India, a sense of having seen everything and a sense of having seen nothing, both at the same time.
"Fascinating India" spreads an impressive panorama of India’s historical and contemporary world. The film presents the most important cities, royal residences and temple precincts. It follows the trail of different religious denominations, which have influenced India up to the present day. Simon Busch and Alexander Sass travelled for months through the north of the Indian subcontinent to discover what is hidden under India’s exotic and enigmatic surface, and to show what is rarely revealed to foreigners. The film deals with daily life in India. In Varanasi, people burn their dead to ashes. At the Kumbh Mela, the biggest religious gathering of the world, 35 million pilgrims bathe in holy River Ganges. This is the first time India is presented in such an alluring and engaging fashion on screen.