Lata Mangeshkar

The film chronicles the ascent of Shivaji, the great Maratha warrior who fought for liberty from the erstwhile Muslim rulers in order to establish a secular Hindu kingdom.

Major Jaidev saves a politician from the clutches of a dreaded terrorist. However, the terrorist joins hands with his childhood friend Anjali to ruin his life.

While Northern India’s 100-year-old film industry is best known for flamboyant dance sequences and romantic plot lines, its directors have begun to step outside established formulas and explore grittier subject matter. This program surveys the world of Bollywood filmmaking, examining the personalities as well as the commercial and thematic concerns that drive central Asia’s answer to Tinseltown. Interviews with directors Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowariker, and Yash Chopra are included, along with commentary from choreographers, musical directors, and Cinemaya Magazine editor Aruna Vasudev. The industry’s newfound attention to poverty, homelessness, and other social concerns is examined. Several film excerpts are included.

Samir Niyogi lives in India and is assigned by the Government to travel to Rajasthan, evaluate a princely castle that once belonged to Raja Param Singh, take stock of all items, the condition of the building, and report back to the Government. Enroute to his destination by train, he permits a woman to enter his compartment, goes to sleep, and when he awakens finds her gone. A few days later, when he goes to the castle, he finds the very same woman cooking within the premises.

Khandekar’s didactic script for Vinayak continues his preoccupation with the character of a moral man whose principles conflict with practical reality. Manohar (Salvi, who plays this character’s earlier version: Bappa in Vinayak’s Amrit, 1941) is an alcoholic but idealistic public prosecutor and calls for the death sentence for the nationalist anarchist Ravindra (Vinayak). Ravindra’s girlfriend Shashi (Meenakshi) is pregnant and gives birth in an orphanage. She then becomes a nurse and has to look after Manohar who falls for her. She agrees to marry him but keeps her child a secret. When a child is found dead in the orphanage, Manohar prosecutes its humanitarian manager for infanticide. Shashi, who appears as a witness, reveals the truth of her life in court, causing a dramatic change in her husband’s world-view.

Raj Kapoor, the film maker and actor became a legend in his lifetime. Head of one of the last great studios on the Indian sub-continent and creator of a film-making empire for nearly half a century. Woven into the texture of this 70-minute film, part personal narrative, part rare visuals, part cinema footage, is the picture of a man who straddled the Indian cinematic world for nearly half a century like a colossus.

Samir Niyogi lives in India and is assigned by the Government to travel to Rajasthan, evaluate a princely castle that once belonged to Raja Param Singh, take stock of all items, the condition of the building, and report back to the Government. Enroute to his destination by train, he permits a woman to enter his compartment, goes to sleep, and when he awakens finds her gone. A few days later, when he goes to the castle, he finds the very same woman cooking within the premises.