Jangarh Singh Shyam, an iconic Indian artist from a remote tribal village, committed suicide in a Japanese museum in 2001. Director Amit Dutta found on an old mini-DV tape during a journey he made in 2008 to his native home, in search of him.

Deliberately using DV medium to capture the present while evoking memories of the past, Tape 39 quietly observes the absurdity of modernisation in Indian towns. A fragment from his work on Gond artist Jangarh Singh Shyam, this short is distinctive piece from Amit Dutta’s multi-disciplinary practice.