Kalpana (1948)

A writer narrates a story to a film producer: Udayan, a young dancer, dreams of founding an academy where India's dance traditions can live again. The tale follows him from boyhood visions through love, rivalry and the struggle to win support for his vision, with the plot repeatedly opening out into long, imaginative dance sequences that mix classical, folk and modern movement. Kalpana ("imagination") is the only film made by Uday Shankar, the pioneer of modern Indian dance, who stars alongside his wife Amala Shankar. It was shot at Gemini Studios in Madras and took years to complete. Long hard to see, it was restored by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project and shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, and it is now recognised as one of the most original Indian films of its era.