Indian Sweets & Savouries (1982)Now is a good time to explore the thousands of films in our free collections on BFI Player. If you’re snacking more than you should, then start with the Eating In collection – a buffet of public information films, local newsreel and iconic adverts. I loved Indian Sweets and Indian Sweets & Savouries from the Media Archive for Central England, in which two enthusiastic reporters, curious about the rise of Indian cuisine on Britain’s high streets, thrust themselves upon the Shereen Kada sweet centre in Moseley and Mr Gupta’s Chaat House in Leicester. Enjoy proto-Partridge Tony Maycock and his hands-on sweet tasting, his dislike of shahi tukda, and his ear for the unfamiliar: “These things?” “They are jalebis”… “Jelly babies?”
This led me to New Ways, Ealing Council’s well-meaning but condescending public information film for South Asian people adapting to life in the UK (“Feeling cold? Put on a coat”), and then to Vinod Pande’s London Me Bharat – the first Hindi-language film made in the UK and his perspective on the migration of Indian culture to Britain. After this, try Gurinder Chadha’s short doc I’m British But…, a portrait of young British Asians in the 1980s – and the rise of the M&S chicken tikka sandwich!
Ben Roberts
BFI CEO
@bfiben