Arising from the Surface

Collaborative film made in Denmark.

Mani Kaul's diploma film shot at Ajanta Caves

A documentary story told through images, poetry and the Dhrupad, a vocal genre in Hindustani classical music, said to be the oldest still in use in that musical tradition.

A documentary on the role of women in India.

In a poetic hour and a half, director Mani Kaul looks at the ancient art of making pottery from a wide variety of perspectives.

Chitrakathi is about the folk artists of western India who narrate with the help of leather puppets. Mani takes us to the sleepy Konkan coastal village and introduces us to the family that has preserved this unique art for several centuries.

Based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Meek One", Nazar is the saga of a Bombay-based antique dealer-cum-money lender (Shekhar Kapur), who at the age of 40, marries a woman (Shambhavi Kaul) who is 17, and brings her home to his spacious flat in a multi-storied building with a magnificent view. Their marriage is not a happy one, even though he hopes it will get better. But the bride, who had until her wedding lived her life in an orphanage, is immersed in her own thoughts, and at one point even holds a revolver against her husband's head while he slept. The film explores their complex life in a manner unusual for Indian cinema.

A very clever parrot lives in a Hindu palace, surrounded by many beautiful girls, but the parrot escapes, and is trapped far from the palace. One day, when its new owner is sleeping, the bird convinces a young boy to open the cage door. In return, it shows the boy a secret passage to get into the palace.

This film suggests a network of hierarchical relations between people through sometimes subtle and at other times blunt illustrations.

A 'filmscape' on the Kashmir valley.