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Bombay: Our City

A Film by Anand Patwardhan


film still

BOMBAY: OUR CITY tells the story of the daily battle for survival of the 4 million slum dwellers of Bombay who make up half the city's population. Although they are Bombay's workforce - industrial laborers, construction workers, domestic servants - they are denied city utilities like electricity, sanitation, and water. Many slumdwellers must also face the constant threat of eviction as city authorities carry out campaigns to "beautify" Bombay.

BOMBAY: OUR CITY is an indictment of injustice and misery, and a call to action on the side of the slumdwellers.

Also available in a 82 minute version

"Perhaps disturbing to those looking for objective overviews, but especially interesting to viewers considering the problem of the film: What should be done about Bombay's thousands of shanty-dwellers?... BOMBAY is a very powerful film, a documentary with a point of view on people's rights, urban welfare, and other key issues in India's major cities and in cities all over the world." - Joan L. Erdman, American Anthropologist

"Patwardhan gives us this story simply and clearly, with restrained passion, and it becomes, finally, appalling and moving." - Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times

"Quite clearly, BOMBAY: OUR CITY is the best documentary ever made in India." - K. Mohamed, The Times of India

"Excellent... Recommended for libraries serving students in courses in urban problems, political science, and anthropology/sociology at the undergraduate and graduate level." - D.L. White, Choice

"An eye-opening film... It helps viewers see the totality of the unjust conditions of the working-class people in urban Bombay, and to empathize with them. It is a low-budget activist film whose main actors are the common slum dwellers revealing themselves to be intelligent and compassionate people." - Development Update

"One of the best documentaries I have ever seen." - Sean Cubitt, City Limits (London)

** First Prize Winner, 1986 Cinema du Reel
** 1985 Margaret Mead Film Festival
** 1985 Berlin Film Festival
** 1985 Leipzig Film Festival
** 1985 London Film Festival

57 minutes / color
Copyright Date: 1985
Sale/video: $390
Rental/VHS: $100


Subject areas: Anthropology, Asia, Economic Sociology, Economics, India, Labor Studies, Sociology, South Asia, Urban Studies

Related Links:

The Films of Anand Patwardhan

Related Titles:

Father, Son and Holy War: Does the root of India's recent bloodshed - perhaps all bloodshed - lie in male insecurity, itself an inevitable product of the very construction of "manhood?"

In the Name Of God: The violent campaign waged by the militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to destroy the 16th century Ayodhya mosque.

A Narmada Diary: Investigates the Sardar Sarover Dam project in western India which may displace 200,000 residents of the Narmada valley.


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Last updated 03/26/2008