The Long Room — Film Screening

Bhonsle made three films and destroyed the negative of the second. Kaagaz ke Ghar is the first — a slow, sceptical study of a Bombay chawl being sold out from under its residents, shot almost entirely at dusk, and unseen in a cinema in India since 1981.

The Film Heritage Foundation completed a 4K restoration from the surviving camera negative this year. This is the first public screening of that restoration, and it is one night only.

Introduced by Meher Kapoor, followed by a forty-minute conversation with the film's editor, Nandita Sarkar, who has not spoken publicly about it in twenty years.

35 mm and DCP

Screened from a 4K DCP on a Barco projector, in a room that has been a cinema since 1953.

The auditorium at The Long Room before a screening

One hundred and eighty seats

Unreserved seating. Doors at 18:30, film at 19:15, and we do not admit latecomers after the first reel.

The audience at a previous Long Room screening

The conversation afterwards

Forty minutes, unmoderated audience questions, ending by 21:45. Nobody is obliged to stay.

When and where?+

Friday 27 November 2026. The Long Room, Regal Building, Colaba, Mumbai. Doors 18:30, film 19:15, out by 21:45.

What does a ticket cost?+

₹450, or ₹250 for students and anyone under 25 with any form of ID. Thirty seats are held for the concession price at every screening and they are not the bad seats.

Are subtitles available?+

English subtitles are burned into the restoration. We also run a live-captioning tablet service for the introduction and the post-screening conversation; request it when booking.

Is the venue accessible?+

Step-free entry from Wallace Street, four wheelchair spaces in row F, and an accessible toilet on the same level. The 1953 building has no lift to the balcony, which we are honest about rather than quiet about.

Will it screen again?+

Not this year. The restoration goes to Rotterdam in January and the rights for Indian screenings sit with the Foundation, not with us.

Kaagaz ke Ghar

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