Private eye Rajeshji (centre) and his motley band of sleuths solve crimes and also dance in British documentary filmmaker Phil Cox’s The Bengali Detective Photograph courtesy Phil Cox

He seems almost like a fantastical comic Bollywood creation. Private eye Rajeshji dresses in a glittering gold costume and tops it with a sparkling silver headband. He also dreams of becoming a twinkle-toed dance star even as he chases criminals across Calcutta.

Rajeshji is the star of a movie but he isn’t the creation of a fanciful Bollywood scriptwriter. He’s the central character of The Bengali Detective, a documentary by British filmmaker Phil Cox that has been wowing audiences around the world.

Cox is one of several international documentary filmmakers who’ve turned their lens on this country to get a new angle on the life and times of 21st century Indians.

So, there’s American filmmaker Van Maximilian Carlson’s Bhopali on the prolonged after- effects of the Bhopal gas tragedy, which picked up the grand jury and audience awards for best documentary at the popular Slamdance Film Festival this year. And New York-based Rebecca Haimowitz and Vaishali Sinha have explored the issue of outsourcing surrogacy in Made in India.

(Above) American filmmaker Max Carlson’s (in blue) Bhopali takes a personalised look at the Bhopal gas tragedy through the stories of survivors like Sanjay Verma (in white) and the children at the Chingari Trust Photograph courtesy Max Carlson

And before you ask the question, no these foreign filmmakers aren’t looking at grim tales from the bottom of the pile of Indian society. Instead, they are looking for classic human interest stories which are a dime a dozen in the Indian sub-continent. Take British filmmaker Gemma Atwal who went on a long-distance chase of wonderkid Budhia Singh and his coach Biranchi Das in Marathon Boy.

Or look at acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto, who has taken her camera deep into the Indian hinterland. She has turned the lens on women’s activist Sampat Pal Devi and her Gulabi Gang in rural Uttar Pradesh. And in The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical, Sarah McCarthy follows the children of a Mumbai slum school as they stage a recital of The Sound of Music’s soundtrack with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra.

Now, if you thought that a documentary meant a boring, didactic voice-of-god reel, you couldn’t be more wrong. For these international filmmakers are moving beyond the traditional forms of documentary — and beyond stereo-typical images of India too.

Nilotpal Majumdar, dean of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, says that earlier, television stations with their own political and social agendas sent crews to make documentaries in India. But now, more independent filmmakers are travelling to India. “They are often intrigued by the way of life here. And they are making more personal films,” he says.

Yes, the filmmakers are tackling serious issues. But they are approaching them differently. Take Bhopali. Los Angeles-based Carlson, 26, who has been making films since he was in school and whose work includes the award-winning short film Dissociative, learnt of the gas tragedy when a friend volunteered at the Sambhavna clinic in Bhopal in 2008. Immediately, he felt it would be “a good subject for a full-length documentary”.

International documentary filmmakers Rebecca Haimowitz (top) and Priya Sinha’s (middle) Made in India, on the issue of outsourcing surrogacy, is winning awards around the world Photograph Courtesy Rebecca Haimowitz and Vaishali Sinha

He was drawn to it because “an American corporation had been responsible for the disaster and had, in my opinion, gotten away with it”. “Also, I knew this was an ongoing disaster because children were being affected by it,” he says.

What’s the difference between Carlson’s film and other moviemakers? Unlike other documentaries on Bhopal, which were “concerned with the history”, Carlson says his film is “much more of the moment and more character-driven”.

Bhopali traces the story of survivors like Sanjay Verma, who lost eight members of his family, and also children from the Chingari Trust like the infant Saiba, who dies during the film. “I took a more personalised approach although the film also covers the political struggle,” says Carlson, who was director, cameraman and editor.

“India is interesting because it’s booming but there are also a lot of problems. So there are limitless stories here,” says Carlson.

Certainly, the Indian growth story is a big hook. Moreover, the filmmakers are fascinated by the rapid socio-economic changes taking place here. And films like Slumdog Millionaire and Born Into Brothels (set in Sonagachi), which won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2004, have helped too.

“There’s always a thirst for stories from India. But I’d like to see filmmakers get past stories of the high-tech boom and poorest-of-the-poor,” says Priya G. Desai, who, with another American filmmaker Ann S. Kim, is making Match+: Love in the Time of HIV. They’ve just received a second Sundance Film Institute grant for this documentary about match-making for HIV-positive couples in India.

Or take Pink Saris. Longinotto, who’s made award-winning films on women’s issues like Divorce Iranian Style and Rough Aunties, was fascinated by Sampat Pal’s personal struggle and her fight for women. “A lot of the films I see about India are about victims. But it’s interesting to make a film about a person, who’s had a difficult beginning and who’s trying to change things,” she says.

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto’s (top) Pink Saris follows the Gulabi Gang’s founder Sampat Pal (above right) as she champions the cause of girls like Renu (above) and Kunni (top) Photograph courtesy Kim Longinotto

Longinotto describes Pink Saris as “a reflection of the longing for change”. She filmed it in ‘observational mode’, following Sampat for 11 weeks in 2010. “The way I make films is that I go with a strong sense of what I want to do. But I’m not setting things up. It’s a journey because you’re following a character and you don’t know where it will lead you,” she says.

Making the movie led her to four girls who approach Sampat for help. There’s 15-year-old Renu, who’s abandoned by her husband and falls in love with a younger man. The film has drama, hope and betrayal. And Sampat emerges as a “contradictory character” who, while being admirable, shows how “fame can become a destructive thing”, says Longinotto.

Like Pink Saris, the new documentaries are largely character-driven narratives. Even in Made in India, while Haimowitz and Sinha examine the physical, emotional and moral risks in outsourcing surrogacy, they do so by following the stories of an American couple, Lisa and Brian Switzer, and of their surrogate mother, Aasia, a young mother of three in Mumbai.

Made in India, which premiered at the big Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto in 2010, has already won several awards. Haimowitz says she’s keen on “exploring social issues through personal narratives”. And Sinha, who graduated in physics from Mumbai before studying film in the US, has worked on women’s issues. So Made in India was close to their heart. “It combined issues of commodification of women’s bodies, reproductive technology, personal choice and global economics,” says Haimowitz. Adds Sinha: “We’ve allowed the human stories to bring out the issues and show the nuances.”

If they’re exploring new aspects of a changing India, the filmmakers are also revealing how much the medium has changed. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Bengali Detective with its mix of British observational documentary and Bollywood styles. Cox and his Native Voice Films have made documentaries in India before. But they were reportage pieces. The Bengali Detective, which premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival and Berlinale this year, happened because Cox wanted to make “a character-based film, around a single person, who did something that opened up other people’s lives”. “I looked at lawyers in Russia, psychoanalysts in Mexico — and ended up with Indian detectives,” he says.

(Left) Director Sarah McCarthy (centre) with the kids from Muktangan School, whose recital of The Sound of Music’s soundtrack (above) is the subject of her film The Sound of Mumbai Photographs courtesy Sarah McCarthy

That’s because he felt that a private eye would provide access to the “hidden secrets of modern Indian society”. He spent a year meeting “primarily boring and one-dimensional detectives”, till a Calcutta producer sent him Rajeshji’s details.

Cox weaves several themes in the film. There are the three counterfeiting, adultery and murder cases and their clients’ dilemmas. There’s Rajeshji’s personal love track with his severely diabetic wife, and the dance motif as a way of dealing with harsh realities. The film moves from “seemingly slapstick humour to pathos, near farce, real tragedy and grief”. Says Cox: “I felt humour and tragedy and social commentary could all have a place in my film as it reflects life. I’m tired of the one-dimensional dogmatic documentary — it has certainly killed the form dead for popular Indian audiences.”

Heartrending tragedy and riveting drama are at the core of Atwal’s Marathon Boy too. The story about Budhia and his coach Biranchi, which released in 2010, is a Bollywood-meets-Dickens saga filled with greed, political intrigue and murder. Atwal, who was a business journalist before turning to films, has shot it in cinema verite style. But she’s also used stop-motion animation to “embed the film inside this dark fairytale”.

British filmmaker Gemma Atwal’s (top) Marathon Boy, which tells the story of Budhia Singh (above) and his coach Biranchi Das, is a Bollywood-meets-Dickens saga Photograph courtesy Gemma Atwal

The Bristol-based Atwal first read about Budhia and Biranchi in 2005. As a marathon runner, she was amazed by Budhia’s abilities. She was also fascinated by the parental bond between them. And she found echoes of her own adoptive father and birth mother in their tale. So for five years, Atwal made several trips to India filming Budhia and Biranchi at critical junctures. “We were shooting observationally and allowing the story to play out without prejudice. This enabled us to present an objective picture of a very complex situation,” she says.

Atwal started with a sporting epic in mind. But as “different layers began to emerge”, it became “a darker subject” about “greed and envy and corruption”. The film follows the custody fight between Budhia’s birth mother and Biranchi, and Biranchi’s murder too. And it’s as much about Biranchi as about Budhia. “I wanted the viewers to feel conflicted about Biranchi in the same way as I do,” she says.

The new documentaries on India are also about their filmmakers’ personal explorations. So in The Sound of Music, Australian-born British filmmaker Sarah McCarthy’s fascination with socio-economic disparities is clearly evident. When McCarthy, who has made films like Murderers on the Dancefloor (about Filipino prisoners dancing to pop numbers like Michael Jackson’s Thriller) before, first heard of Mumbai slum children performing The Sound of Music, she says: “I immediately thought of the brilliant contrast that these songs, which make you think of mountains and rivers, would be to the mania of Mumbai.”

The Sound of Mumbai, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in late 2010, follows the bewitching Ashish and his classmates from the Paragon Charitable Trust’s Muktangan School as they journey from Mumbai’s slums to the grand National Centre for Performing Arts with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra. It’s a tale of disparities, opportunities and dreams. “I knew it was an uplifting piece and I hope I’ve been able to bring that out and also the difficulties the kids face,” says McCarthy.

Ashish and his friends are already winning over audiences around the world. As are the other documentaries on India. Pink Saris has screened at over 100 festivals and is being distributed across Europe and in India (by Magic Lantern). HBO is broadcasting The Sound of Mumbai in the US. Marathon Boy has been picked up by distributors too. And Fox Searchlight Films has picked up the worldwide remake rights of The Bengali Detective.

Meanwhile, Haimowitz and Sinha have dubbed Made in India in Hindi. They plan to screen it to communities in India over the next two months. And Bhopali too will have a theatrical run in the US followed by international television broadcasts and DVD release.

All the filmmakers are also raising funds from screenings and establishing outreach programmes in India. And they’re also eager to make more films here, despite the bureaucratic hurdles. Sinha’s already working on a documentary following four Kashmir University students “who are trying to pursue their dream in an extraordinary situation”. And there’s Match+ coming up from Desai and Kim. Cox is even developing a fiction film set in London and West Bengal.

The documentary’s strength, Cox asserts, lies in “capturing a spontaneously changing reality where the real is much more bizarre and stranger than any fiction approach could be”. It’s a strength that the new documentaries on India are certainly capturing.