Bombay Talkies documents discovered in Sydney

SYDNEY: Until he was in his 30s, Peter Dietze believed he was a German raised in Australia. “One day I discovered some photographs and said to my mother, ‘he looks like me, but he’s Indian’,” says Dietze, who had just discovered that his grandfather was filmmaker and founder of Bombay Talkies, Himanshu Rai.

“My mother was only five when Himanshu Rai left my grandmother for Devika Rani. My parents came here from Germany during the White Australia policy, and so my mother didn’t reveal her Indian origin,” says Dietze.

Later, visiting a gallery in New York, he met a curator, who was a personal friend of Devika and had her personal items. “He  told me, ‘these belong to you’, and sent me a box full of documents,” says Dietze, who runs a visual merchandising company.

He claims he now has a wealth of information about the Bombay Talkies, including film scripts in Hindi in pristine condition, documents relating to fund raising and technical support that Bombay Talkies received from the German film production company, UFA.

“These documents show the great effort that Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani went through to bring a German crew to Malad. I hope to resurrect the interest in my grandfather’s iconic films,” says Dietze.

Rai’s second co-production with the German crew, Shiraz, was recently restored by the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.

“The nitrate print was acquired by the NFSA in the 1970s as a part of a large batch of prints accumulated by an Australian distributor over many years,” says Meg Labrum, chief curator at the NFSA. “Very few copies of Indian features of this period exist worldwide,” she adds.

Shiraz was recently screened by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney with live accompaniment by Dva — the internationally renowned musical duo of Tunji Beier and Linsey Pollak — performing an original score on percussive and hybrid wind.

Rai’s Prapancha Pash (1929) was also restored recently by the British Film Institute. There will be screenings with live orchestras around the world, and the film will be released in UK cinemas and on DVD.

Dietze hopes to put up an exhibition of the documents he has discovered. “My grandfather screened Karma (1933) to King George V,” says Dietze who has been to India several times.

“My grandfather turned Devika Rani into a star. I regret that I wasn’t able to meet her,” he added.