Kalpana

(Imagination)

Uday Shankar
India, 1948

Digital Restoration

  • Introduction
    Shivendra Singh Dungarpur

    Shivendra Singh Dungarpur is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, film archivist and restorer, and the founder-director of Film Heritage Foundation (FHF). He facilitated the restoration of Kalpana by the World Cinema Foundation and organized the Film Preservation and Restoration Workshop India in 2015 and 2016 under the aegis of FHF.

Uday Shankar’s forgotten gem from the forties is a work of great daring.

Nandina Ramnath, Scroll.in
featuring

Uday Shankar, Amala Uday Shankar, Lakhmt Kanta, Dr. G. V. Subbarao,

A cinematic ballet and a visual feast, this experimental drama, the only film by celebrated dancer Uday Shankar (brother of sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar), is the semi-autobiographical story of a young man’s dream to establish an arts academy in the Himalayas. With influences ranging from German Expressionism to Indian folk and classical forms, the film captured the ethos of a newly independent India eager to fuse modernity and tradition.

Anuj Vaidya
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Uday Shankar
  • Amritlal Nagar
Cinematographer
  • K. Ramnoth
Language
  • Hindi
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 155 mins
Additional Info
  • Restored in 2008 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project at Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata in association with the family of Uday Shankar, the National Film Archive of India, and Dungarpur Films; restoration funding provided by Doha Film Institute