The Unreserved

The Kali of Emergency

2017

During social and political turmoil, what is the manifestation of divine intervention? How do the gods and goddesses act in the volatility of the contemporary world? If they walk on earth as men and women, how do they endure the chaos of modernity? Centering on the terrible and majestic incarnations of Goddess Kali and her celestial avatars, this film is a metaphysical contemplation in times of perpetual emergencies. Avikunthak’s remarkable sense of forms finds expression in the extraordinary combination of performance and essayistic cinematic practices.

My Otter Diary

2025

On the banks of the Cauvery River in southern India, wildlife filmmaker Sugandhi Gadadhar studies the behavior of Asian otters. On one of the subcontinent's most dynamic waterways, a conflict has arisen between these small carnivorous mammals and fishermen, whose livelihoods also depend on the river's resources.

Ask the Sexpert

2017 · ★ 7.4

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

2016

　　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.

An Indian Day

1968 · ★ 6.3

Traveling the length and breadth of the country, S. Sukhdev constructs, a panoramic, non-narrated study of Indian life in the late 1960s. Shot across villages, deserts, countryside, and cities, the film observes daily labor, leisure, and movement without commentary, allowing humor, contradiction, and social texture to emerge organically. The result is a sensory encounter with India poised between inherited tradition and accelerating modernity.

Fascinating India

2014 · ★ 8.2

"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.

Orphans of Tibet

2010

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?

A City at Chandigarh

1966 · ★ 6.3

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

A Suitable Girl

2017 · ★ 6.9

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.

Reichsbahn unterm Hakenkreuz

2010

The German railroad has been in operation since 1835, but the darkest chapter in German railroad history is often forgotten. Extensive original film material from the Nazi era shows the dubious role played by the Deutsche Reichsbahn during the Second World War and how little resistance there was among the railroad workers.

Aravani Girl

2009

Sixteen year olds Palani and Karthik want to become "ladyboys." They're bullied in school and beaten by their families. Their parents would like to see them grow up as normal boys, but they're falling deeper and deeper into the world of the "Aravanis." Loved as dance performers but hated as homosexuals, their stories emblazon the inner conflicts of India's gender culture today.

Paul Robeson Documentary

A story to honor actor-singer-activist Paul Robeson and his contributions to today's social climate and inspire new generations to engage in the ongoing fight for justice and equality.