Bengal Shadows

The River of Life and Death

Mother India is home to many castes, tribes and religions and one common factor that brings this diverse country all together is Jewelry. Come explore the deep history and culture of the jewelry of India dating back more than 5000 years. As we explore the history we also take you into Bangalore, India and talk to local Jewelry Stores and Jewelry Artisans as they share their stories and their family history of their involvement in jewelry going far back into their family ancestry.

Happy farmers, a wedding and some giant cauliflowers...

She is one of the last shepherdesses who still lives with her flock in the heights of the Gya-Miru valley in Ladakh. At the age of 50, Tsering is the youngest in her village to drive her 350 goats and sheep at the expense of transhumance in this region of the Himalayas, located between 4000 and 6000 meters above sea level. A harsh and precarious life, often solitary, mishandled by difficult climatic conditions and a sometimes hostile nature, which does not prevent this tiny bit of woman to sing, laugh and ... philosophize.

Even seventy-five years on from the attack on Pearl Harbor, questions remained about how the world’s most powerful nation was caught by surprise. This Secret History documentary from 2016 reveals new insight into what Washington knew before the attack, and whether Churchill and Roosevelt conspired to allow it to happen. Within the space of two hours, the devastating assault by Japanese forces left nearly 2500 people dead and 19 ships destroyed or damaged. An investigation ordered by President Roosevelt found Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, guilty of dereliction of duty. With his career in ruins, Kimmel became a broken man. But was he really to blame? Now, new research reveals what Washington knew prior to the attack and uncovers a crucial dossier that could have prevented it.

This portait of life on the tea plantations is decidedly rosy – clearly, there are no exploited workers here. However, the film provides an intriguing overview of tea production – from the planting of tea seeds to the final shipping of the precious leaves across the globe.

A brief but colorful travelogue of India's biggest cities following the partition of the country in 1947 at the end of the British Raj.

Bones of the Buddha is a 2013 television documentary produced by Icon Films and commissioned by WNET/THIRTEEN and ARTE France for the National Geographic Channels. It concerns a controversial Buddhist reliquary from the Piprahwa Stupa in Uttar Pradesh, India. It was released in May, 2013, and was broadcast in July 2013 in the US on PBS as part of the Secrets of the Dead series.

A stunning trek from the vale of Kashmir, via Sind Valley and Kargil and Lamayaru Monastry.

The story of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists' Mission (1841-1969) to the Khasi Hills in north-east India, written and presented by Welsh poet Nigel Jenkins.

Dedičstvo krásy a biedy

Early film of a crowded street scene in an unidentified Indian city.

Richly detailed amateur ethnographic film on the agrarian economy and society in rural Punjab.

This movie follows the growth and influence of anime culture in Nagaland, India.

A tribute film on Bob Dylan, depicting Calcutta's affinity with Dylan through cityscape and interviews of notable Indian musicians who were inspired by him. The film also draws parallels between Dylan's body of work and the Baul tradition of Bengal.

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.

With the construction of the Indian planned city of Chandigarh, the Swiss and French architect Le Corbusier completed his life's work 70 years ago. Chandigarh is a controversial synthesis of the arts, a bold utopia of modernity. The film accompanies four cultural workers who live in the planned city and reflects on Le Corbusier's legacy, utopian urban ideas and the cultural differences between East and West in an atmospherically dense narrative.

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...

The making of the James Bond movie Octopussy (1983) in Udaipur, India during 1982.

A documentary of explorer Richard Halliburton's travels on the Indian sub-continent, featuring a mix of real and staged footage.