Documentary Film Resources
History, Anthropology & Culture
What’s With the Bamboo Dance
30 min, DVD
Director: Moji Riba
The film is about the 3 lakh-strong Young Mizo Association (YMA), and how the traditional code of rightful conduct called ‘twalhmainha’ in Mizoram has been re-invented.
Contact **3
Saacha: The Loom
106 mins, DVD, English, 1999
Directors: Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar
Produced by UMCTISS
An unusually mounted film about a poet (Narayan Surve), a painter (Sudhir Patwardhan) and the city of Mumbai -- the birthplace of the Indian textile industry and the industrial working class.
Contact **1
Kahankar: Ahankar (Story Maker: Story Taker)
38 mins, DVD, English subtitles, 1996
Directors: Anjali Monteiro and K P Jayasankar
Produced by UMCTISS
A selection of stories and paintings by the Warlis, a creative tribal community in Maharashtra.
Contact **1
The Sacred Hills of Ellora
30 mins, VCD, English
Director: Simonetta Gatto
The film traces the footsteps of pilgrims who visit the cave temples of Ellora to honour Lord Shiva.
Kanavu (Dream)
35 mins, VCD, English subtitles
Director: C Saratchandran
A documentary about a tribal children’s commune in Kerala.
Kitte Milve Mahi
72 mins, VCD, Punjabi with English subtitles, 2005
Director: Ajay Bharadwaj
Produced by India Foundation for the Arts
This film is a people’s narrative of the cultural traditions of Dalits in Punjab.
Review link: http://infochangeindia.org/documentary37.jsp
Contact: ajayunmukt@yahoo.com
The City Beautiful
78 mins, DVD, Hindi with English subtitles, 2003
Director: Rahul Roy
Produce by: Produced by Aakar Productions for Unifem
The story of two weaver families living in Sunder Nagri (Beautiful City), a small working class colony on the margins of India's capital city, Delhi, and how they reinvent themselves to eke out a living.
Review link: http://infochangeindia.org/documentary37.jsp
Contact: khel@vsnl.com
Colors of the Earth
25 mins, DVD, English
Director: Shefali Bhushan
A musical voyage into the vibrant melodies of traditional Indian music - from the deserts of Rajasthan to the barren towering mountains of Lahaul and Spiti in the Himalayas.
Contact **5
Tracing the Arc
38 mins, VCD, English
Director: Pankaj Butalia
The film recreates the stupendous effort taken in British India between 1802 and 1843 to build The Great Arc, which attempted to measure the curvature of the earth's surface under the guise of cartographic and military necessity.
Contact **5
Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City
13 mins, DVD, English
Director: Paromita Vohra
In two discrete but associated shorts, this film looks at divisions of language, class, memory and food, and queries the myth of Bombay as a great cosmopolitan city.
Contact: 28/27A PMGP, Off Mahakali Caves Road,
Andheri (E), Mumbai 400 093
Email: parodevi@vsnl.com
Annapurna: Goddess of Food
25 mins, DVD, English, 1995
Director: Paromita Vohra
Set in the lanes and by lanes of central Bombay's mill area, the film is a portrait of a women's group named Annapurna. Started in 1975 by 14 khanawalwalis - women who prepared meals for migrant workers, thus earning the name food-lady - the organization has today swelled to a membership of 150,000 and has it's own credit co-operative bank, short-stay home and catering centre.
Contact: 28/27A PMGP, Off Mahakali Caves Road,
Andheri (E), Mumbai 400 093
Email: parodevi@vsnl.com
Searching for Saraswati
62 mins, VCD, Hindi and with English subtitles
Director: Sudheer Gupta
The film reflects the search for the invisible river of learning - Saraswati - amidst rising fundamentalism and consumerism that marked the 40-day Maha Kumbha festival held at Allahabad in 2001.
Contact **5
Meals Ready
46 mins Tamil and with English subtitles
Directed: Vani Subramanian
Meals ready examines the market of South India’s most important food grain: Rice. It explores the town of Waljabad in Tamil Nadu and finds that the unequal bargaining power of the growers, financiers and buyers of rice, has a direct link with the divided power and privilege that cuts across rural Tamil society, which includes the hierarchies of caste and gender, or politics and religion, and the ways in which market led economic reform in India threatens to deepen these inequalities.
Contact **5
Komal Rishab
24 mins, DVD, English
Director: Ein Lall
Singer Shubha Mudgal, singing compositions in Raga Shree, Todi, Sohini and Bhatiyar, takes us on a journey from sunset to sunrise.
Contact **5
Breathing Without Air
23 mins, DVD, No Dialogue, 2004
Director: Kapilas Bhuyan
A rustic road show, Mundapota - the son buries his head in the ground while his father beats the drum, thrilled viewers applaud; but what happens in the darkness that engulfs him in the pit?
Contact **10
Apna Jungle Apni Kahani
33 mins, VCD, Hindi
Director: Krishnendu Bose
A short documentary about Indian surveyors sent into Tibet on reconnaissance missions by the British in the 1860s. Disguised as monks, these ‘Pundits’ contributed significantly to the map of Asia.
Contact **5
Ksurasyodhana – (Razor’s Edge)
30 mins, Malayalam and with English subtitles
Director: Vipin Vijay
The film explores the rich fabric of the Temple Oracle's performance – a blend of dance, narration, ambience, and ritual purification.
Contact **9
Kumar Talkies
76 mins, VCD, Hindi and with English subtitles
Director: Pankaj Rishi Kumar
A look at how emerging technologies widen the horizon of knowledge in a small North Indian town, even while undermining and replacing existing modes, both traditional and modern.
Contact **9
Nee Engey (Where are you?)
150 mins VCD, Tamil, 2005
Director: R.V. Ramani
Highlights the pathetic condition of shadow puppetry and shadow puppet artists of South India. The film is a tribute to the art of moving images and its original practitioners.
Contact **9
PALA
83 mins, VCD, Punjabi with English subtitles, 2004
Director: Gurvinder Singh
The film deals with the diversity of the centuries old storytelling and musical tradition of Punjab, and its rapid decline.
Contact **9
The Play Goes On
84 mins, VCD, Hindi and with English subtitles, 2005
Director: Lalit Vachani
A documentary about JANAM (The People’s Theatre Front), a little theatre group that never stopped performing in the face of dramatic political transformation and personal tragedy.
Contact **9
The House on Gulmohur Avenue
30 mins, DVD
Director: Samina Mishra
A film about home and belonging, tracing the filmmaker’s personal journey to understand what it means to be a Muslim in India.
Contact **3
Backstage Boys: Punjab’s Labour Goes Global
30 min, DVD
Director: Meera Dewan
Explores the trend of illegal immigration by youth from Punjab to Europe and North America in search of a better life.
Contact **3
Fiddlers on the Thatch
30 min, DVD
Director: Trisha Das
An inspirational story of the children of Gandhi Ashram School, Kalimpong and how learning western classical music has opened up new horizons in their otherwise impoverished and humdrum lives.
Contact **3
Manus Maajhe Naav (I Am Human)
30 min, DVD
Director: Ajay Raina
An inspirational account of Baba Amte, and his life and work, told spontaneously by the people he has
touched with his compassion.
Contact **3
A Community Returning to the Mainstream
30 min, DVD
Director: Sandip Ray
The film traces the history of Kheria Sabars, a denotified criminal tribe of Purulia, and their
transformation through education.
Contact **3
Face Like a Man
30 mins, DVD, English, 1993
Director: R. V. Ramani
Nine painters try and express their preoccupations, in their canvas. The filmmaker, with his own preoccupation, strikes a relation
Contact **10
Language of War
50 mins, Multilingual, 1996
Director: R. V. Ramani
A bilingual play based on the Mahabharata, on the dilemma of Arjuna - the rehearsals become performance
Of Hosts and Hostages
81 mins, DVD, English (subtitled), 1998
Director: Gargi Sen
The film investigates the impact of the development of large-scale tourism on the hosts: on their ecology, economy and culture in the state of Goa.
Contact **10
The One Tree Project
24 mins, DVD, English, 2002
Director: Shivani (Helen) Jean Cameron
30 artists and crafts people take a single felled tree, saved from wood chipping, and each create something beautiful
Contact **10
Trinkets and Beads
52 mins, DVD, English (subtitled), 1996, UK
Director: Christopher Walker
Trinkets and Beads is the story of the battle waged by a small band of Amazonian warriors to preserve their
way of life
Contact **10
Vande Mataram
5 mins, DVD, Tamil, Hindi, 2005
Director: Amudhan R. P.
Rehman's new version of Vande Mataram is an icon for India's modern and globalised image, but realities are uncomfortable
Contact **10
Gangasagar
56 mins, DVD, Hindi, English, Bengali
Director: Dhananjoy Mandal
Ganga Sagar is one of the biggest and most famous pilgrimage in the Hindu Pantheon. On the auspicious day of Makar Sankranti, thousands of people take their holy dip at the confluence of the Ganges and the ocean. The fair assumes a great place of meeting for all knids of people including pilgrims, Sadhus, tourists, traders and foreigners as well. The film endeavours to present the true spirit of the colourful festival.
Contact: Dhananjoy Mandal, Mou Films, South Duilya (Opposite, Christian School), P.O.
Duilya, P.S, Sankrail, Howrah – 711302
Email: dhananjoy2000@yahoo.com
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