Car Assembly, Calcutta (1926)

An Eastern Market

Documentary detailing a farmer’s visit to the market in Rawalpindi.

Fascinating India

"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.

Ask the Sexpert

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.

A Crow Has Been Calling for a Whole Day

　　Originally created as an installation for the third Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale this film is a gripping diary and travelogue of a trip the filmmaker made through India. She tries to grasp India’s love and thoughts, the sentiments and everyday conditions and the experience of disease and death.

Ladakh

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

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids

Documentary depicting the lives of child prostitutes in the red light district of Songachi, Calcutta. Director Zana Briski went to photograph the prostitutes when she met and became friends with their children. Briski began giving photography lessons to the children and became aware that their photography might be a way for them to lead better lives.

The Search for the Meaning

"The Search for the Meaning" is a collective experience, carried out with the audiovisual contribution of countless people who record their testimonies and spiritual experiences in 19 countries, to show a new spirituality that is being born...

Arrowhead

Learn how to climb Great Gable in the Lake District, via the Arrowhead ridge climb.

Hilton Hotel Construction

The Hilton Hotel rises from the ashes, surrounded by derelict houses and bomb damaged streets.

Morris Dancing at Berkhamstead

A noble English dance tradition is preserved in Hertfordshire.

Snapshots of China: Shaoyang Hospital, Hunan

Rare insight into the health work of Methodist missionaries in rural Shaoyang, Hunan Province, South Central China.

Nehru

Divided into three parts — The Awakening, The Struggle, and Freedom — this is a biographical film on Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India. Relying on Nehru's writings and speeches, the film traces the evolution of Nehru from his birth through his life. It also deals with the effect of history on Nehru and in turn his impact on the world.

India on Film: 1899 – 1947

As part of the 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, the British Council and British Film Institute share a unique collection of films documenting the sights and culture of a bygone India. Filmed between 1899-1947, and preserved in the BFI National Archive since then, these rare films capture many glimpses of life in India, from dances and markets, to hunts and pageantry.

Maya, la tigresse du Maharashtra

Plot unavailable

Delhi Durbar and Coronation

Jaw-dropping pomp and pageantry at the 1911 Delhi Durbar

A Suitable Girl

A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.

Le Beurre : Du bonheur en motte ?

Plot unavailable

Auroville: L'esquisse d'un monde

Plot unavailable

By the River

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.

Rajputana, Jhalawar, Bundi & Katakali Dancers

A trip to the spectacular city of Bundi and a Kathakali dance performance, filmed in vivid colour.

Lahore - Badshahi Mosque

Extraordinary footage of prayers in the Punjabi capital.

Delhi and The North

Grand buildings and missionary work come together in the 1947 Indian tour of construction magnate John W. Laing.

Delhi to the North West Frontier

Amateur film featuring government buildings in Delhi, a shooting party in Malakand and winter in Abbottabad.

Lahore

Muharram procession through Lahore bazaar, crowded streets and buildings.

Delhi Durbar

A film produced to celebrate the coronation of George V as King-Emperor at the Imperial Durbar of 1911.

Simla Scenes: Indian Viceroy at Lahore

An intimate insight into the servant culture and lifestyle of the Viceroy of India and family, as they visit Simla (Shimla) and Lahore.

India

Amateur film of the passage to India - complete with guest appearance by Gandhi.

Native Life in Bundi

Amateur film showing daily life in Bundi, India.

Simla and Lahore

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

Calcutta Pageant

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

Farewell, My Indian Soldier

A young woman researches the hidden story of Indian soldiers who came to fight in France and Belgium during the World War I. The presence of these 140,000 soldiers in Europe is a virtually unknown fact of history.

Delhi Durbar

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

Indian Scene of Procession

Stately scenes in India, likely filmed during the 1903 Delhi Durbar.

Darjeeling

This amateur film gives us a fair idea of the opulent life enjoyed by members of the British government in India.

Unravel

Unravel follows the Western worlds least wanted clothes, on a journey across Northern India, from sea to industrial interior. They get sent to Panipat, a sleepy town and the only place in the world that wants them, recycling them back into yarn. Reshma is a bright, inquisitive woman working in a textile recycling factory in small time India, who dreams of travelling the vast distances the clothes she handles have. While Reshma shows us how these garments get transformed, she and other women workers reflect on these clothes. Despite limited exposure to western culture, they construct a picture of how the West is, using both their imagination and the rumours that travel with the cast-offs.

Calcutta Topical No. 1

Fashionably attired folk attend the races in Kolkata.

Annual Inspection of the Bodyguard by His Excellency Lord Lytton

The Governor of Bengal and family - on and off duty.

Duke of Connaught's Indian Tour

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