Twenty years after India's independence, the filmmaker travels across the country and interviews its youth, those born on Independence Day in 1947. What does independence mean to them? What are their dreams? How do they see themselves and the young nation that they symbolise? The answers hold a mix of...

This film attempts to awaken social consciousness using the contrast of images of poverty with images of wealthy people. It brings to light certain evils of Indian society and shows how the people must co-operate with the Government in its fight against corruption in the country. And Miles to Go was heavily...

Sastry upends all the conventions of documentary and fiction filmmaking to debunk the supposed “truth” of the image. This is an irreverent and caustic essay on the purpose of documentary filmmaking and the responsibility of a filmmaker. Is s/he merely a technician involved in a formal exercise or someone engaged in the...

A film on Bombay, using time-lapse and an abstract soundtrack to depict the evanescence of urban daily life and its transitoriness. The quintessential Indian experimental city film, used as an educational tool to understand time-lapse, sync sound and lightingas well as offering a historical chronicle of a city.

A psychedelic trip through the 1960s youth culture in India. An analysis of science, technology and modernity with abstract references to symbols, faces and moods. A sensory collage of icons, symbols and the everyday. Pati eschews narrative and commentary to present the excitement and expectations of young people: images of...

A layered reflection on several topics – youth, diversity, progress, education and technology. With an enormous undercurrent of adolescence and sexuality, the film weaves seemingly disjointed documentary moments,which are a celebration of individual freedom. These are intercut with a performance by college students of Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda...

Made a year before the Emergency, Flash Back was commissioned by Films Division to commemorate its 25th anniversary. Sastry, with his ever-surprising style, turns this “history of” film into a joyous mix, bringing together archival film footage, documentation of Films Division’s infrastructure, and the musings of John Grierson, Ezra Mir, S. Sukhdev...