Director Bharatbala looks back on the fateful date of January 30, 1948, in the short film The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The film is the fifth release under the Virtual Bharat project, through which the director plans to produce 1,000 short films about the history and culture of India.
The Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi features archival footage of Gandhi, as well as interviews with his last personal secretary V Kalyanam and follower Sarla Mehta. Both of them were with Gandhi when he was shot dead by Hindutva fanatic Nathuram Godse. The film follows Mehta, 93, and Kalyanam, 98, recollecting their memories of the assassination.
“It is the 150th year of celebrating Gandhi and I was looking for an unusual angle to tell his story,” Bharatbala told Scroll.in. “So I went out looking for people who are still alive who were his close, personal friends and associates. What an irony that I looked far and wide for people and found Mr V Kalyanam, just a few streets away from my home in Chennai.”.
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Bharatbala on his 1,000-film project: Not just music videos ‘but a virtual museum of Indian stories
Nine Hours to Rama: The story behind the film image that many believe depicts Gandhi’s assassination
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