A reflection on the life and death of India's second Prime Minister, Lal Bhahadur Shashtri.
Social & External
Mother India is home to many castes, tribes and religions and one common factor that brings this diverse country all together is Jewelry. Come explore the deep history and culture of the jewelry of India dating back more than 5000 years. As we explore the history we also take you into Bangalore, India and talk to local Jewelry Stores and Jewelry Artisans as they share their stories and their family history of their involvement in jewelry going far back into their family ancestry.
The Kumbh Mela is a great roving Hindu spiritual festival that has moved around India for more than four thousand years, erecting temporary cities along the Ganges River.
Award-winning filmmaker Sandhya Suri (I for India) skilfully weaves together archive footage 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. Around India boasts a superb new score that fuses western and Indian music from composer and sarod player Soumik Datta.
The documentary “The Leopard Rocks” accompanies Neelam, a female leopard, as she fights for the lives of her offspring, and provides a fascinating insight into the lives and adventures of one of the world's most interesting big cat species in a unique, unusual environment.
After 25 years of the Project Tiger Scheme operating in the Madhya Pradesh, these magnificent animals have become more trusting, permitting an extraordinary intimate film which follows them from sunrise to sunset, in monsoon rains and in shimmering heat
Stretching along the river Ganges rests Varanasi, the holiest of India’s seven sacred cities, and a place where devout Hindus go to die in hopes of achieving moksha - becoming liberated from the cycle of rebirth. Hindu scriptures say that a soul has to undergo 8.4 million rebirths before reaching the human form, the only form one can attain moksha, and dying in Varanasi and being cremated along the banks of the river is believed to be the ideal way of achieving this. Several so-called ‘death hotels’ exist to accommodate believers who abandon their lives and come here in wait for death - some for as long as 40 years.
By drawing a parallel between the Indian Durga Puja festival and other forms of celebrating the divine feminine, Santa Shakti reveals the Sacred Power beyond languages and religions.
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.
This film describes the nature and impact of major religions in India, artistic monuments and contributions of each dynasty and cultural development of the people in different regions of the vast subcontinent.
Botanical gardens in Bombay plus the highly decorative Jain Temple in Calcutta.
The work of a district officer in the province of Bengal.
Sue Perkins immerses herself in the complex life of Kolkata and sees how it is reinventing itself as a megacity with a reputation for eccentricity, culture and tolerance.
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.
Somi is pregnant with her second child. A girl, she hopes. Together with her husband she prepares for this new phase of their parenthood. It means that their son has to go to school, but as an ex-Naxalite that is tough to achieve in contemporary India, where people like them are third-rate citizens. They lack the certificates and an opaque bureaucratic process doesn't help. Directors Isabella Rinaldi, Cristina Hanes and Arya Rothe of the NoCut Film Collective concentrate on Somi's close family ties, painting a portrait of ex-Naxalites in India. Once, Somi and her husband were communist rebels fighting for the rights of Indian tribes. However, to safeguard their family's welfare, they surrendered to the government in exchange for marginal compensation and simple accommodation.
Short film about Indian people
Journey alongside a young tigress raising her cubs in the fabled forests of India.
Australia's first national sudoku team The Numbats - four ex-rugby mates - travel into the unknown of competitive puzzling as they enter the World Sudoku Championships in Goa, India.
In India, young people must marry someone approved by the family. Those who fall in love with someone else risk being killed for dishonour. But now they have someone to turn to for help: the Love Commandos.
The story of Sri Prem Baba, spiritual master and humanitarian leader with followers around the world, begins when a 14-year-old from Sao Paulo, Brazil, had a vision that said: 'go to Rishikeshi, India'. This story is delightfully told by himself leading us through the odyssey that would turn an ordinary boy into Prem Baba. Memories of friends, admirers and followers take us along the paths of the prosperous therapist who sank into a deep existential crisis and finally found India, where he would devote himself, after much debate, to his master and his destiny. A rich journey of enlightenment that brings us precious reflections on the meaning of life and the role of each one on this planet.