A rare Indian silent comedy film Docker and the Rose (1920), that was lost and later discovered in 2006 from an antique shop in London, will be screened as part of the Liverpools European Capital of Culture festivities on Friday.
The nine-minute film was produced by a lesser-known Indian filmmaker Shanta Rao Dutt, who left Mumbai in 1896 to follow the pioneering Lumiere brothers to France and later went on to produce a series of films for the British Raj.
He was knighted in 1945 for his services during the Second World War, but returned the honour the next year after his son, Kiran, was deported for spying after leaking information to leaders of the Indian freedom struggle.
The film was produced when Dutt was in Liverpool to shoot a newsreel about the Indian Lashkars campaign for equal rights. Dutt cast a young Indian docker as his hero, and the chambermaid from his boarding house as his heroine. During filming, Dutt fell in love with his leading lady, Mary, and married her.
Despite its light-hearted comedy tone, the authorities banned the film. Amid the controversy, Dutt and his new wife were forced to flee England for the US. The print of the film was lost in the course of their hasty departure. Dutt died in 1987, aged 106.
