''L'Inde fantôme: Reflexions sur un voyage'' is a 1969 French seven part television documentary miniseries about

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, directed by

Louis Malle Louis Marie Malle (; 30 October 1932 – 23 November 1995) was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in both Cinema of France, French cinema and Cinema of the United States, Hollywood. Described as "eclectic" and "a fi ...

. It was shown on BBC television as ''Phantom India''. Malle later said that the film was his most personal work and the one he was most proud of, it is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of his career. It was initially inspired by a two-month trip to India in late 1967 that Malle made on behalf of the

French Ministry of Foreign Affairs The Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs () is the ministry of the Government of France that handles France's foreign relations. Since 1855, its headquarters have been located at 37 Quai d'Orsay, close to the National Assembly. The term Quai ...

to present a selection of " new French cinema" throughout the country. Filming took place between January 5, 1968, and May 1, 1968, with a crew of two, a cameraman and a sound recordist. Malle arrived in India with no particular plans and financed the trip himself. The resulting 30 hours of footage was then edited down to the 363 minutes of ''Phantom India''. The 105-minute-long ''

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

'' used the footage he had recorded over his three-week stay in that city. ''Phantom India'' was shown on French television and the BBC in the UK in 1969. Many British Indians and the Indian Government felt that Malle had shown a one-sided portrait of India, focusing on the impoverished, rather than the developing, parts of the country. A diplomatic incident occurred when the Indian government asked the BBC to stop broadcasting the programme. The BBC refused and were briefly asked to leave their New Delhi bureau.Frey, Hugo ''Phantom India'' in Aiken, Ian (Ed.) ''The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film'', p. 714, Routledge, 2013

Episodes

References

External links

* 1969 films 1960s French-language films French documentary films Films directed by Louis Malle Films set in India 1969 documentary films Documentary films about India 1960s French films {{Documentary-tv-prog-stub