'' Shiraz '' (''Shiraz: A Romance of India'') (''Das Grabmal einer großen Liebe'' in German) is a 1928

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

, directed by

Franz Osten Franz Osten (23 December 1876 in Munich – 2 December 1956) was a Bavaria, Bavarian filmmaker who along with Himansu Rai was among the first retainers of Bombay Talkies. Osten partnered with Rai on a number of India's earliest blockbuster film ...

and starring

Himansu Rai Himanshu Rai (1892 – 16 May 1940) was an Indian actor and film director. Regarded as one of the pioneers of Indian cinema, he is best known as the founder of the studio in 1934, along with Devika Rani. He was associated with a number of mov ...

and Enakshi Rama Rau. It was adapted from a stage play of the same name by

Niranjan Pal Niranjan Pal (17 August 1889 – 9 November 1959) was an Indian playwright, screenwriter, and director in the Indian film industry in the silent and early talkie days. He was a close associate of Himanshu Rai and Franz Osten, with whom he was a ...

, and based on the story of the commissioning of the

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...

– the great monument of a

Mughul The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

prince for his dead queen. Due to the public's apathy towards silent films, a sound version was also produced in 1929. While the sound version has no audible dialog, it features a synchronized musical score with sound effects along with a theme song.

Plot

Shiraz (Rai) is a potter's son, who is brought up as brother to Selima (Rau), a girl of unknown but royal lineage who was rescued from an ambush in childhood. Shiraz falls in love with Selima as a young adult and when she is kidnapped by slavers and sold to Prince Khurram, Shiraz follows her to

Agra Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...

, where he will risk a horrible death to protect her and one day design her great memorial.

Cast

as Shiraz * Enakshi Rama Rau as Selima/Empress

Mumtaz Mahal Mumtaz Mahal (; ; born Arjumand Banu Begum; 27 April 1593 – 17 June 1631) was the empress consort of Mughal Empire from 1628 to 1631 as the chief consort of the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. The Taj Mahal in Agra, often cited as one of t ...

* Charu Roy as Prince Khurram/Emperor

Shah Jahan Shah Jahan I, (Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram; 5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was the Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the ...

* Seeta Devi as Dalia

Music

The sound version of the film featured a theme song entitled “The Song of Shiraz (An Oriental Reverie)” by Eric Valentine (words) and Harry Collman (music).

Production

The film was shot in

Jaipur Jaipur (; , ) is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the List of cities and towns in Rajasthan, largest city of the north-western States and union territories of India, Indian state of Rajasthan. , the city had ...

. It was an Indian/British/German co-production, and the second of three silent films made on location in India by star and producer Himansu Rai. The others are ''

Prem Sanyas ''Prem Sanyas'' (''The Light of Asia'') (''Die Leuchte Asiens'' in German) is a 1925 silent film, directed by Franz Osten and Himansu Rai. It was adapted from the book, ''The Light of Asia'' (1879) in Verse (poetry), verse, by Edwin Arnold, bas ...

'' (''The Light of Asia'', 1926) and ''

A Throw of Dice ''A Throw of Dice'' (''Prapancha Pash'') is a 1929 silent film by German-born director Franz Osten, based on an episode from the Indian epic ''Mahabharata''. Plot summary The movie is about two kings vying for the love of a hermit's daughter, t ...

'' (''Prapanch Pash'', 1929).

Restoration

Shiraz was restored from original film elements by the

BFI National Archive The BFI National Archive is a department of the British Film Institute, and one of the largest film archives in the world. It was founded as the National Film Library in 1935; its first curator was Ernest Lindgren. In 1955, its name became th ...

in 2017, and had its premiere as a gala screening at the 2017 London Film Festival, accompanied by a new score composed and performed by

Anoushka Shankar Anoushka Hemangini Shankar (born 9 June 1981) is a British-American sitar player and musician of Indian descent, as well as occasional writer. She performs across multiple genres and styles—Indian classical, classical and contemporary, acoust ...

. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

s film critic

Peter Bradshaw Peter Nicholas Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire'' magazine. Early life and education Bradshaw was educat ...

praised the film as " a startlingly ambitious epic weepie-romance". The restored version subsequently played in a number of venues in India in late 2017. The film was shown as part of the

BFI London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. Founded in 1957, the festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the BFI estimated that around 240 fe ...

's lineup at We Are One: A Global Film Festival in 2020.

References

External links

* * 1928 films 1928 drama films British silent feature films British drama films British black-and-white films German silent feature films German black-and-white films Indian silent films Films set in India Films directed by Franz Osten UFA GmbH films Films set in the Mughal Empire Cultural depictions of Shah Jahan Films set in Uttar Pradesh Films shot in Rajasthan 1920s British films Silent drama films 1920s rediscovered films Rediscovered British films Rediscovered German films Rediscovered Indian films {{1920s-silent-drama-film-stub