Bombay Angel

In turn-of-the-century British India, the respectable Chaudhuri family of Madras send their only daughter, Devika, to London for a long, expensive education. The Chaudhuris anticipate her returning in 1928 with advanced knowledge of the fine arts and a perfect English accent: both excellent attributes for matrimony.

The gorgeous, free-spirited Devika returns with something else in mind: the fledgling Indian film industry. Against upper-class Indian society's conventions, twenty-year-old Devika escapes her family's luxurious home to travel alone to Rajasthan and work as a crew member on Throw of The Dice, a silent film produced by Himanshu Rai, a dashing young actor/producer she'd met just once at a party.

On location at a gorgeous palace overlooking a lake, Devika finds herself in a surprising rivalry with the film's female lead, Sita Devi, and soon realizes that she's attracted the attention of both a Rajasthani prince and Himanshu. As her relationship with her family fractures, she's faced with a choice; how far will she dare to go to make it in the film world?

Devika's journey leads out of the hot plains of Rajasthan into pre-war Berlin, and finally to beachfront Bombay--an area that people are starting to call "Bollywood."

Based on the true life of India's first talking-movie star, BOMBAY ANGEL recalls a beautiful, black-and-white world of cinema and forgotten love.