Marking 70 years since the partition of India, this year’s Beyond Borders International Festival’s focus on the Indian sub-continent includes the screening of three films that explore the impact of this momentous event in history, and its reverberations today.

Beyond Borders International Festival presents a partition trilogy of films.

Garam Hava  (‘Scorching Winds’) (1973, 146 mins, Urdu with English subtitles)

The first film to deal with the human consequences of the 1947 partition of India, Garam Hava focuses on the plight of a North Indian Muslim businessman who, in the months after Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, wrestles over whether to join many others in moving his family to Pakistan, or remain in India. Directed by M.S. Sathyu, this controversial film remains one of the most poignant examinations of the post-partition flight of Muslims in India.