Islam in Tranquebar. Raw footage from 1985

In 1985 ethnographer Esther Fihl shot around 200 minutes of raw footage in Tranquebar/Tharangampadi, a former Danish trading station in India from 1620-1845. The footage has been made into 9 small films of around 4 minutes each, documenting culture and society in Tranquebar in the 1980s. The film clips portray history, fishery, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, childhood, schools, an oxcart ride, and Indian-Danish cultural heritage. An additional film footage, shot in 2007, was made into a film clip portraying a wedding.

In 2015, ITMEDIA, University of Copenhagen converted and processed the old raw footages and MA student Sofie Vilhelmsen edited the film clips for the Danish National Museum’s Tranquebar Initiative (2004-2016), research leader Professor Esther Fihl, dir. Centre for Comparative Cultural Studies, ToRS, University of Copenhagen. © Esther Fihl