A Throw of Dice

Franz Osten, 1929, a German-Indian production shot in India with an Indian cast: two kings gamble, and a woman is the stake. From a story in the Mahabharata by way of Niranjan Pal. Himansu Rai produced. It is The Indian Tomb without the tomb. Dice, elephants, a cinema that treated India as a location instead of a backdrop painted in Berlin. The last of Rai and Osten's three silents, and the one that survives in the best shape; the BFI restored it in 2006 with a score by Nitin Sawhney.