Street Scenes in India

A sex columnist gains popularity even while a ban on comprehensive sex education in schools is adopted by approximately a third of India’s states.

The Mysore Palace shines with 100,000 lights in a dazzling 400-year-old celebration.

A doctor and party visit the villages of eastern Manipur in India's far north east.

Hear the Lama band, see the sacred dances: welcome to Sikkim, in the shadow of the Himalayas.

The Duke rides an elephant as he ventures on safari in Bengal.

Armoured elephants, sacred monkeys and a camel carriage from Rajasthan.

The timber trade calls on animal help.

Lady Pamela Lytton, wife of the Governor of Bengal, visits the grand marble Victoria Memorial in Calcutta.

Scenes from a lavish pageant held during the royal visit to India, celebrating King George V’s coronation.

Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.

Aristocracy, army, elephants and more mark the start of the 1903 Durbar.

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

Sixteen year olds Palani and Karthik want to become "ladyboys." They're bullied in school and beaten by their families. Their parents would like to see them grow up as normal boys, but they're falling deeper and deeper into the world of the "Aravanis." Loved as dance performers but hated as homosexuals, their stories emblazon the inner conflicts of India's gender culture today.

A film about memory, identity and the overwhelming power of love. One-year-old Devi was found starving at a railway station in Delhi. The police took her to Palna, an orphanage, where she lived for a year. When Devi learned to talk she often wanted to talk about Amma, her first mother. In the film, the 6-year-old Devi journeys to her own past, as her family adopts another daughter from Palna, a baby sister for Devi.

Amateur film of fishing and geese-shooting trips by a British party in India.

Amateur film showing daily life in Bundi, India.

A humorous documentary about a historic hunt in 1929 through the African savannah and Indian jungle with lots of animal footage.

Evocative observational scenes of Simla and Lahore, including the gorgeous Shalimar Gardens and Anarkali Bazar.

Film of local events in Ajmer province including the fair at Pushkar.

Amateur footage of a trip into the Himalaya.