Kumbh Mela: Songs of the River

"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.

Vaastu Marabu documents the theory and practice of the Vaastu tradition of Indian art, architecture, craft and design. One of the foremost shilpis (designer-builder-sculpter) of India, Shri. V. Ganapati Sthapati of Mammallapuram, meditates on his art and his occupation. The film shows the process of making stone idols at Mammallapuram, near Madras, of casting bronzes in Kumbakonam, and of building stone temples at Kamudhi, near Madurai and at Ratnagiri, near Vellore. It illustrates the continuity of the tradition and reveals a technology that is ancient, yet still relevant today. The film explores the process of translating inner experience into art, and invites us to experience the naked beauty of the form while understanding the metaphysical message. The art of the Vishwakarma has given form and expression to all denominations of metaphysical thought in India. The film also probes the underlying scientific and mathematical principles.

Each year, groups of Tibetan children secretly flee their homeland over the Himalayas to reach schools in India founded by the government in exile. Entrusted to smugglers, they are risking their lives by illegally crossing the great Himalayan range, a towering rampart between Tibet and India. The director will take us in the Mussorie school, in North India, where two thousand four hundred children have been rescued. They have left behind their family childhood and are now considered as orphans. We will discover the itineraries of Sonam, aged nine, and Dholma, the little new girl of the school. Here in India, they are taught about Tibetan culture and will find out about the history of their country and their ancestors. Sonam and Dholma's story is that of thousands of Tibetan children. Are they orphans of a lost country or bearers of hope who will save an endangered culture?

An exploration of the 'respectable' and 'immoral' stereotypes of women in Indian society told from the point of view of two striptease dancers in a Bombay cabaret.

Schizophrenia. It may be one word, but it immediately conjures up multiple connotations. Mad. Incurable. Violent. Suicidal. Chemical imbalances. Crazy. A lifelong condition. Inevitable dependency on Medicines. Dark. Terrible. 'A Drop of Sunshine' challenges these notions. It questions the mainstream view of the condition and seeks alternate ways of recovering from it. Through the powerful story of its young and gutsy protagonist, Reshma Valiappan, it seeks to give viewers a new vocabulary to address the stigmatized mental illness. The film proposes that the only treatment method that can work in Schizophrenia is one where the so-called 'patient' is encouraged and empowered to become an equal partner in the process of healing.

Documentary short about the disastrous dangers of aging, ailing dams.

Journey across India, a breath taking land shaped by a myriad of cultures, customs and traditions. Come face to face with the Bengal Tiger and explore the work of this majestic creature with stunning clarity. Soar over blue-hazed Himalayan peaks and sweep down towards the thundering Indian Ocean as we celebrate the power and beauty of India's greatest ambassador - the mighty Bengal Tiger.

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

A short film showing the industrial process of jute works in India.

The film show the day to day running of the Titaghur Jute company, which is in Bengal on the banks of the river Hooghly. Opening shot 360 degree pan of industrial buildings. 7000 Indian workers are employed, mostly women and children. There parks for the children to play. We follow the process from jute to cloth women working at looms in the factory (very dark), shots of power plant. Schools and workers accommodations. Shots of trains and boats, loading.

The work of a district officer in the province of Bengal.

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

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.

A state welcome for a Handley Page aircraft arriving in Kolkata.

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

The race is on - for the Viceroy's Cup.

Documentary on the construction of Chandigarh, the new capital of the Indian Punjab region, planned by Albert Mayer and Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

In the heyday of the jute industry, millions of people in Bengal made their living doing this laborious work, which has hardly changed since the industrial revolution. The 100-year-old machinery has been endlessly repaired. State aid kept this sustainable alternative to plastic going, but its future looks bleak.