Around India with a Movie Camera
Essay Films
•
1h 12m
Directed by Sandhyu Suri • Documentary • 2018 • 72 minutes
Leaving OVID on September 30th!
Award-winning filmmaker Sandhya Suri (I for India) skillfully weaves together archival footage—including hand colored sequences—with a new score by composer Soumik Datta to create an emotionally resonant story about life across India from 1899 to 1947.
Drawn exclusively from the BFI National Archive, Around India features some of the earliest surviving film from India as well as gorgeous travelogues, intimate home movies and newsreels from British, French and Indian filmmakers. Taking in Maharajas and Viceroys, fakirs and farmhands and personalities such as Sabu and Gandhi, the film explores not only the people and places of over 70 years ago, but asks us to engage with broader themes of a shared history, shifting perspectives in the lead up to Indian independence and the ghosts of the past.
"By watching the whole documentary there is a greater understanding of the British view of India and the culture of film itself." —Asian Culture Vulture
Up Next in Essay Films
-
Electric Signs
Directed by Alice Arnold • Documentary • 2012 • 58 minutes
New screen-based sign systems are putting TV-style advertising into the public domain in cities around the globe. These electronic signs are re-shaping urban environments and re-defining areas of public space by intensifying the commerci...
-
Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My ...
Directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese • Documentary • 2021 • 76 minutes
As we float through the streets of Lesotho, following a cross-bearing woman and an omnipresent figure wearing wings, a tumultuous history of sorrow and suffering between the motherland and its people unravels. The through lin...
-
Bluespace
Directed by Ian Cheney • Documentary • 2016 • 73 minutes
Could humans live on Mars? Would we want to? Emmy-nominated filmmaker Ian Cheney provides insight into our currently unsustainable relationship with our home planet by examining the sci-fi speculation of 'terraforming,' or making another p...
