Jane Sloan Media Librarian jsloan@rci.rutgers.edu August 2006

Research Resources: Subject Research Guides: Media Collections:
Feature Films India and South Asia

This guide is a browsing aid to selected titles in the video/DVD collections at Rutgers Libraries. The most up-to-date, accurate, and complete information regarding the libraries' holdings is available only through IRIS, our online catalog.

Aandhi Andhi 1999

Arti's political career drives a wedge in her marriage with J.K., who is very averse to political activity. They remain emotionally attached although physically distant, until she happens to be staying at a hotel under J.K.'s management, during her campaign travels, and they reconnect.

1 videodisc (160 min.) :

MEDIA 10-183

The Adversary 199

The story of a young Indian whose education was stopped by the death of his father when almost through medical school and his attempts to find a job, cope with personal and family problems, and how the political, social and economic aspects of Indian life affect him, even though he is not a committed revolutionary or politically active. He lives with his family in a crowded apartment in Calcutta.

1 videocassette (110 min.) :

DANA 517

Ankur The seedling / [presented by] Blaze Film Enterprises ; produced by Mohan J. Bijlani, Freni M. Variava ; story, scenario, direction, Shyam Benegal 2000

Values clash as loyalties are tried and tested in a rural Indian setting. Class conflict of the idle-rich landowning class against toiling peasants is dramatized in a brief extra-marital liaison between an attractive village laborer and her young employer.

1 videodisc (125 min.) :

MEDIA 10-181

Aparajito The Unvanquished 1991

Second part of the Apu trilogy, the chronicle of a Bengali family. Apu's father brings his family to Benares but gets sick and dies. His mother must work as a cook while young Apu begins to train for the priesthood and wins a scholarship to the University of Calcutta.

1 videocassette (108 min.) :

DANA 275

Arth 199?

Inder Malhotra, a fashionable film-maker, is married to Pooja when he starts an affair with film star, Kavita. Pooja leaves him and experiences the social insecurities of a single working woman. Her dilemmas are highlighted by the parallel story of her cleaning lady who, abandoned by her husband, kills him and is arrested. Kavita, who suffers from guilt, eventually succumbs to schizophrenia and leaves Inder.

1 videocassette (ca. 131 min.) :

MEDIA 2-5691

Awara 2000

Renowned judge Raghunath sentences an innocent man on the conviction that a criminal's son would end up as a criminal. His blind belief is put to test when he is estranged from his wife and son Raj who in turn grows up to become a petty thief. The only bright spot in Raj's deprived childhood was his school friend Rita whom he meets once again many years later. Rita is now a young lawyer and the ward of Judge Raghunath. The childhood friendship blossoms into love. Raghunath, who is suspicious of the young man finds his suspicions well founded when Raj steals a necklace from him to gift to Rita on her birthday. Raj's attempts to reform and win back Rita's trust are thwarted by society and he finally ends up in court on the charge of attempting to murder Judge Raghunath. Rita defends him and Raghunath finds himself forced to question his own beliefs when he discovers that the accused criminal is his "own son.".

1 videodisc

MEDIA 10-333

Bandit Queen 1995

A dramatization of the life story of the female dacoit, Phoolan Devi. "Born of low caste in the Chambal River Valley of India, 11-year-old Phoolan is sold into marriage with a man 20 years her senior. She escapes and falls in with a pack of ruthless bandits but the male-dominated gang comes with its own set of brutal humiliations, and Phoolan must struggle to rise above a culture determined to bring her down, in a bloody coup that electrified a nation"--Container.

1 videocassette (120 min.) :

MEDIA 2-3300

Bawandar Sandstorm 2000

A story of a woman who is gang-raped by upper cast men in her village when she speaks up against the prevalent custom of child marriages. She decides to look for justice and from a rape victim becomes a rape activist.

1 videodisc (165 min.)

MEDIA 10-401

Bhumika The Role 2000

A drama based on the autobiography of the Marathi/Hindi actress Hansa Wadkar. Usha is taught music by her grandmother and eventually becomes an actress, a trajectory inflected by the four men she meets at various points in her life: her husband Keshav, narcissistic male co-star Rajan, effete filmmaker Sunil Verma, and the landowner Kale whose second wife she eventually becomes. Many aspects of the story allow the question of women's oppression to be raised,although Usha seems to end up identifying herself with self-sacrifice, defeated by the patriarchal mores that have weighed on her since childhood.

1 videodisc (142 min.) :

MEDIA 10-206

Bombay Bombayi 2000

A romance occurs between a south Indian Hindu man and a Muslim woman. They marry against family wishes and move to Bombay. The time period of the film is set in the December 1992-January 1993 period when the "Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid" controversy had raised racial tensions in Bombay (and other parts of India).

1 videodisc (130 min.)

MEDIA 10-231

Devi, the goddess 1986?

The father-in-law of Daya, a ravishingly beautiful young Bengalese girl, becomes convinced that she is a reincarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali. As a result, Daya is then pressured into submitting to a worship that she is powerless to control.

1 videocassette (89 min.) :

MEDIA 2-1963

Dhund 199

A love-triangle suspense film. The heroine (Aman) is married to a vicious, crippled tyrant who is killed in the beginning of the film. Aman and her secret lover (Khan) are the prime suspects. Their story is shown in flashbacks alternating with the progress of the police investigation. In the end, another man confesses to the crime: the old tyrant had raped the man's wife.

1 videocassette (120 min.) :

MEDIA 2-6216

Dhund The fog 199

A suspenseful drama of murder and mystery.

1 videocassette (ca. 120 min.) :

MEDIA 2-6216

Dil se-- 2000

Romantic drama set in an atmosphere of political turbulence; incorporates fantasy sequences of dance and song.

1 videodisc (165 min.)

MEDIA 10-232

Distant thunder 1974

An award-winning dramatization of World War II famine in India. As the government requisitions the civilian food supply for its armies, the common man starves. To eat he is reduced to an animal--a doctor must humble himself, a peasant turn to prostitution.

1 videocassette (100 min.) :

MEDIA 2-2733

Fire 1998

A young woman accepts an arranged marriage into a traditional New Delhi family, but finds herself drawn to her sister-in-law. She falls in love for the first time and the fallout from their affair shakes everyone around her to the core. Banned in India, this film was the first to confront lesbianism in that country.

1 videocassette (104 min.) :

MEDIA 2-5246

Genesis 1986

The story of two men who left civilization after a famine to live in a desolate land. They were later joined by a woman who had left the land of the floods after everyone including her son had died.

1 videocassette (108 min.) :

MEDIA 2-5441

The home and the world 1986

A woman falls in love with her husband's boyhood friend and his political ideals.

1 videocassette (130 min.) :

MEDIA 2-1889

Khamoshi 2000

The nurse Radha has to pretend to fall in love with her male patients, as part of the therapy in a mental asylum. The first time she does this, she actually falls in love, and is devastated when her cured patient merely thanks her and leaves to marry his fiancee. When it threatens to happen once again, with her second patient, the nurse goes insane.

1 videodisc (121 min.) :

MEDIA 10-197

Lucia 1992

A dramatization based on factual conditions in which a Filipino woman and her family leave their fishing village after an oil spill and move to the ghettos outside Manila. There the woman struggles to keep her family together amidst terrorism, crime and corruption, and attempts to prevent her children from falling prey to the dangerous allures of the city's night life.

1 videocassette (90 min.) :

MEDIA 2-5275

Mahabharat 198

Tells the story of the descendants of King Bharata, two families who lived in northern India, perhaps about 1200 B.C. The Pandava brothers lose their kingdom to their Kaurava cousins and engage in a mighty struggle to win it back. Many lives are lost in the conflict. The story illustrates the futility of war. Some of the heroes are taken from history, and some represent human ideals and gods.

24 videocassettes (ca. 4360 min.) :

MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA. MEDIA 2-2929 cassette 1 2-2930 cassette 2 2-2931 cassette 3 2-2932 cassette 4 2-2933 cassette 5 2-2934 cassette 6 2-2935 cassette 7 2-2936 cassette 8 2-2937 cassette 9 2-2938 cassette 10 2-2939 cassette 11 2-2940 cassette 12 2-2941 cassette 13 2-2942 cassette 14 2-2943 cassette 15 2-2944 cassette 16 2-2945 cassette 17 2-2946 cassette 18 2-2947 cassette 19 2-2948 cassette 20 2-2949 cassette 21 2-2950 cassette 22 2-2951 cassette 23 2-2952 cassette 24

Mai's America 2002

A Vietnamese teenager gets the chance to study in the United States. Expecting Hollywood, she instead lands in rural Mississippi. She discovers that "America" is both less and far more than she bargained for.

1 videocassette (72 min.) :

MEDIA 2-6168

Mandi market place 2000

The story of a whore house in a remote town which becomes the bone of contention between political and business interests.

1 videodisc (158 min.) :

MEDIA 10-198

Mirch Masala Spices 1990

Set in the 1940's, this film explores an Indian community's reaction to an oppressed, impoverished woman's plight involving British colony tax collectors.

1 videocassette (98 min.) :

MEDIA. MEDIA 2-2662 2-5059

Mohra 1995?

Police-criminal action drama.

1 videocassette (177 min.) :

MEDIA 2-5720

Monsoon wedding 2002

Shot in New Delhi in 30 days, this film about a Punjabi wedding brings out all the frenzy and frolic, the loyalties, filial bonds and friendships, along with skeletons in the cupboard associated with such family events.

1 videodisc (115 min.) :

MEDIA 10-141

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer 2004

A Muslim wildlife photograher and a married south Indian Brahmin are thrown together during on a bus journey when they find themselves in a middle of a Muslim riot. Their conventional beliefs are challenged and their lives are changed.

1 videodisc (120 min.)

MEDIA 10-413

Mr. & Mrs. 55 2000

Anita must marry quickly to inherit her father's estate. Her aunt, the authoritarian champion of women's rights, plots to find a needy bachelor who will marry Anita for money and divorce her immediately afterwards. A poor but lovable scrounger and cartoonist, Preetam Kumar, agrees to the plan but he and Anita then fall in love. Persuaded by Seeta Devi, Preetam eventually goes through with the divorce and even furnishes faked photographs compromising himself. When Anita discovers the truth, she and Preetam decide to stay together.

1 videodisc (103 min.) :

MEDIA 10-196

Mùi ðu ðu xanh L'odeur de la papaye verte = The scent of green papaya 1995

Set in 1950s Saigon, this film is about a young country girl who joins a family as their servant and develops an enduring but secret attachment to a friend of the eldest son.

1 videocassette (104 min.) :

DANA. MEDIA 485 2-2860

Para perintis kemerdekaan Pioneers of freedom 1999?

Set in the 1920's, this film tells the story of one women in a complex political world, where issues of religious reform and women's rights are connected with anti-colonialism and social revolution.

1 videocassette (121 min.)

MEDIA 2-6785

Pather panchali Song of the road 1989?

First part of the Apu Trilogy, Satyajit Ray's epic chronicle of a Bengali family and the boy Apu. The story deals with the family's life in their ancestral village as the father struggles to eke out a living.

1 videocassette (112 min.) :

MEDIA 2-1282

Roja 1992

An Indian police officer, expert in computers and cryptography, comes to a South Indian village in search of a bride. He marries the younger sister of his original intended. Immediately after the wedding he is posted to embattled Kashmir. Just as the newlyweds are getting acquainted and beginning to fall in love, he is kidnapped by Kashmiri separatists. Delicate negotiations ensue, with his wife pleading with officials to recover her husband.

1 videodisc

MEDIA 10-233

Satyam shivam sundaram 2002

A man, enthralled with his wife's singing, struggles to overcome his revulsion at her hidden disfigurement.

1 videodisc (ca. 160 min.) :

MEDIA 10-182

A Tale of love 1995

A film loosely inspired by the Tale of Kieu, an early 19th century Vietnamese poem in which a martyred woman sacrifies herself for the good of her family. This film, set in America, portrays the Vietnamese immigrant experience through Kieu, a writer who sends money to her family in Vietnam by working for a woman's magazine. As she works on an article about the legacy of the Tale of Kieu, she comes to understand how the poem resonates in her own life. In the end, overcoming the sorrows of love and exile is, for Kieu, to reinvent both herself and the 200-year-old poem.

1 videocassette (108 min.) :

MEDIA 2-3181

Theeviravaathi The Terrorist 2000

In a story inspired by the events surrounding the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi, a suicide bomber examines her emotions and finds herself in a psychological divide as she contemplates her future.

1 videodisc (95 mins.) :

MEDIA 10-84

Two daughters 1996?

Post office -- SamaptiTwo stories "The Post office" and "Samapti" express the hungers, pains and joys of youth in terms of compassionate understanding and truth. The "Post office" a new postmaster is taken care of by an orphan girl. In "Samapti" a student returns home to his village to find his mother has arranged a marriage for him.

1 videocassette (115 min.) :

DANA 602

The World of Apu Apur sansar 1991

The third part of the Apu trilogy. The shy young man, Apu, is drawn into marriage out of regard for friendship and Hindu custom. He quickly realizes his love for his wife and they are blissfully happy for a year, until she dies in childbirth, leaving him the desolate father of a child.

1 videocassette (ca. 103 min.) :

DANA 332