Organised by British Film Institute (BFI)
We Are One: A Global Film Festival - Shiraz: A Romance of India
Watch Shiraz here
Based on the romance between the 17th-century Mughal ruler Shah Jahan and his queen, Franz Osten’s landmark silent film charts the romance that led to one of the world's most iconic structures: the Taj Mahal. Thoughtfully honoring the classical Indian myth that inspired it, and shot entirely on location, Shiraz spins a melodrama of unrequited love doomed by social stratification: a potter (producer Himansu Rai) seeks to rescue the love of his life (Enakshi Rama Rau) after she is abducted and sold into the harem of the emperor (Charu Roy). The sweeping passion of this stirring epic, which features a specially commissioned score by Anoushka Shankar, still resonates with a vivid immediacy—and builds to a fittingly grand gesture of redemption.
A restoration by the BFI National Archive. Film restoration & new score supported using public funding by Arts Council England, alongside additional support from Matt Spick; The Adam S Rubinson Charitable Fund; PRS Foundation’s 'The Open Fund’; the George Harrison family, on behalf of the Material World Foundation; the British Council; and all donors to the BFI’s Film is Fragile fundraising campaign. With thanks to Juno Films and trigon-film for allowing us to present the film.