Sonali Joshi

A season of classic and contemporary Indian films marking the 70th anniversary of Indian independence and Partition. The programme comprised 16 films from the immediate post-Partition era through to the 21st century. Representing India's rich cinematic history across the decades, the programme included archive material, features and documentaries with a particular focus on regional Indian cinemas, reflecting the multi-faceted nature of Indian society and its diverse languages and culture - with films in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Ladakhi, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Tibetan and Urdu.

Highlights included a programme of Satyajit Ray films featuring Days and Nights in the Forest (1969) and The Chess Players (1976) and three rare prints of Kanchenjunga (1962), Rabindranath Tagore (1961) and Sikkim (1981) courtesy of the Academy of Film Archive.

The season took place in 17 venues across 13 cities in the UK, including ICA (London), Filmhouse (Edinburgh) and HOME (Manchester) and was supported by Film Hub London as part of the BFI's India on Film season in 2017.

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The initial idea for the season came from a conversation I had with my parents, asking them what films they remembered from their youth in India (before moving to the UK). Having acquired and released the acclaimed film Court (Chaitanya Tamhane, India 2014) in the UK the previous year, I already held a keen interest in Marathi cinema, Marathi being the language spoken in the part of India I am originally from. Through that conversation with my parents, I became particularly curious about the film Sangte Aika (Anant Mane, India 1959) which I have still not been able to track down, although my search continues!

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Stemming from this work, I wrote a piece on the rise of Marathi cinema, published in a magazine accompanying an international Maharashtrian convention in 2018. I am also currently working on subtitles for a restoration of a film in Kannada for L'Immagine Ritrovata.