Touring Talkies, the Last Indian Travelling Cinemas

In India, travelling cinemas, aka «Touring Talkies», have been a cultural and popular tradition, for almost a century now. If there were still a thousand of them around the country in the 1970’s, today, at times of digital technology, there are no more than ten tirelessly carrying their old scratched reels to remote villages. Their arrival is still a major event, a sort of enchanted interlude for the inhabitants, who often live isolated. Anup Jagdale has inherited the touring cinema from his father. Onboard his old rattling and colorful truck, he takes his «talkies» across the state of Maharashtra, one of the largest and most populated in India, with valleys and high plateaus stretching to the Arabian Sea. Ancient equipment and unchanging gestures create every night the same small miracle, thanks to worn-out reels, an old white canvas, a projector from the early 1930’s and a big tent. Anup has brought Promot along on this trip, a boy from his village who wants to learn the business. Driving at around 40km per hour, days on the road are long. But they must keep up tradition. Day after day, road after road, they reach out to new audiences so that their dream of cinema can continue...