Salim Baba

In North Kolkata, India, the 55-year-old Salim Muhammad earns a living with his mobile cinema made of a Lumière-era projector and a six-foot-long theatre on wheels. Salim buys old film from the local movie halls and, using a tailor's shears, razorblade and tape, edits the scraps together into new films for his discerning audience of neighbourhood children, who appreciate seeing and hearing "dialogue, music and fighting without having to wait too long." Miniature auto lights and magnifying glass lenses are used to project the films onto a foot-and-a-half-long paper screen. In the country with the largest film industry in the world, even small entrepreneurs like Salim can count on a full house. Director Tim Sternberg invites Salim to tell his story while focusing on the details of his trade: hands using rusty pairs of scissors, the rivalry of his sons as they vie to help him splice the films together, the wonderstruck eyes of his audience as they watch his films and the textured, decaying walls of Kolkata's streets. Salim talks about his father, from whom he learned the trade, and about his four sons, to whom he is passing on his expertise. is a genuine family epic and a vibrant portrait of the living link between the birth of cinema and the digital age of today.