Joy Ride

"India" developed out of my three journeys to Pune in 2001, 2002 and 2004. I arrived in a forgein country, and felt surprisingly familiar in the foreign. There in the streets, walking among the people, surrounded by their movements, their gestures, by the colors, the light, the beauty. Small things awakened my attention, sometimes only a short glimpse, a hand movement, the color of a sari, a temple hidden in a courtyard. It was like a long hot bath that I took there in Pune's streets - something unique and very beautiful.

The documentary talks about of the devastating earthquake of 2001 and captures first-person accounts of survivors, rescuers, journalists, photographers, and earth scientists.

Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.

This documentary uncovers the dark events of 2024, when, for the first time in India’s history, a sitting Chief Minister and an entire political leadership were jailed without evidence.

Though times have changed, Ram still uses old ways of farming due to a drought in the village. His brother, Bala, goes to Bombay to earn his living. Mahadev, a Zamindar in the village, eyes Usha, the lover of Bala. Due to the drought, the crops fail in the village, and Shikh Sahib, a social worker, comes to help the farmers, and shows them new ways of farming. Ramu goes to Bombay to take a loan for cooperative farming and asks Bala to turn back to the village, but he refuses. [The film is a socio-economic study of post-independence India, blending documentary elements with narrative storytelling. The film is often described as a "simple story woven into the documentary design" and features actors like Prithviraj Kapoor and Dev Anand.]

Tathastu starts off with a recap of moments from Zakir's life. Starting from his early school days, the performance is a ride where the audience gets a peek at the family he was born in, the characters he grew closest to and his young years bloated with aspirations of becoming an RJ. He goes onto share a few personal learnings on stage as he tries to make sense of his journey thus far.

Somi is pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Together with her husband she prepares for this new phase of their parenthood. It means that their son has to go to school, but as an ex-Naxalite that is tough to achieve in contemporary India, where people like them are third-rate citizens. They lack the certificates and an opaque bureaucratic process doesn't help. Directors Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes and Arya Rothe of the NoCut Film Collective concentrate on Somi's close family ties, painting a portrait of ex-Naxalites in India. Once, Somi and her husband were communist rebels fighting for the rights of Indian tribes. However, to safeguard their family's welfare, they surrendered to the government in exchange for marginal compensation and simple accommodation.

The prostitutes of Bombay live a nightmare life, yet there are some people who try to bring a little light into the darkness of the brothels. The film follows the lives of women in two brothels in the slums of Bombay. Some of the women are old, some are very young, but they have all been cheated into the business. And cheated out of life. For ten years now, Vinay, a social worker, has been trying to help them by saving them from AIDS and giving them some comfort. Although they are degraded and exploited outcasts, these women manage to retain some human dignity and cheerfulness. And some hope.

Indian freedom fighter Gandhiji was killed by Nathuram Godse. But what made Nathuram Godse to take this extreme step?

Kota, a city in North-West India famous for its coaching institutions, attracts more than 200,000 teenagers from all across the country to prepare for the undergraduate competitive exams. These students reside in cubicle sized hostel rooms and study for more than 15 hours a day for two consecutive years to crack the entrance exams for prestigious colleges that has acceptance rate of less than one percent. These students face intense insurmountable pressure from coaching institutes, peers and their families which not everyone is equipped to cope with, resulting in some students taking the extreme step of suicide.

From the arrival of a new viceroy to street markets, this amateur film captures the diversity of life in colonial India.

The future Edward VIII visits his Empire, with Indian royalty, elephants, palaces and temples.

Richly detailed record of the Prince of Wales' Indian tour.

Dignitaries including the Nizam of Hyderabad gather to celebrate the Durbar in honour of George V, who arrives by boat in Bombay.

A charismatic Indian-Nepali boy, lives a bohemian life in a remote Himalayan village. As he transitions from childhood to teenagehood, his poetic journey of perseverance echoes issues that span across ages and communities.

A short film that sets up an opposition between functional forms of industrial age and decorative ones from Indian tradition.

Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan looks to history and psychology as he delves into the possible reasons behind the demolition of the Babri Mosque.

In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe.

via print and film, love and music, state propaganda and people's archives, five-year plans and Emergency.

Tree planting in Rajasthan, India, has become a symbol of freedom in the middle of the desert. Families in this community have abandoned the belief that the birth of a girl is a curse.