Indian Power

It’s hard not to be fright­ened at how the sparks fly between chaot­i­cal­ly knot­ted cables and dan­ger­ous fin­gers of flame lick away at the old trans­form­ers, as elder­ly men call … read more

A video record­ing from spring, 2011 in Nashik, India: A girl is play­ing with her broth­er in the holy waters of the Godavari River. They are play­ing very dif­fer­ent­ly, the … read more

In vil­lages inhab­it­ed by India’s Muslim minor­i­ty in Tamil south­ern India, as soon as a girl reach­es puber­ty she is locked away until her wed­ding. This was Salma’s fate when … read more

An 80-year-old Kolkata retiree is on a mis­sion to get his neigh­bor­hood street­lights turned off after sun­rise after he notices they stay on all day as well. Shya­mal Uncle finds his sense of pro­pri­ety upset by this waste­ful expense of elec­tric­i­ty. But find­ing some­one to take him seri­ous­ly proves a battle against an indif­fer­ent bureau­cra­cy and a com­pla­cent status quo (and is just maybe a wel­come dis­trac­tion from his oth­er­wise dull rou­tine). SHYAMAL UNCLE TURNS OFF THE LIGHTS is based on a real incident.

Suman Ghosh real­ized his vérité-style film with the actual pro­tag­o­nists, some­times people involved didn’t know about the shoot­ing. The film is alive with the sights, sounds and per­son­al­i­ties of this old Kolkata neigh­bor­hood, as his unlike­ly pro­tag­o­nist pur­sues a quest that adds up to a wry, reveal­ing, highly orig­i­nal tour of modern India.