An Indian temple girl and handmaidens perform rituals outside a simple set of an Indian temple and display a banner reading ‘Happy New Year’. This unusual 17.5mm format film is wider than the usual silent film frame but with half the picture area of 35mm quality suffers. This was most likely one of the films provided with the Biokam, an early home-movie camera of 1899. Most of the films supplied with the camera were reductions made of Warwick Trading Company films, so it's possible this is a film they took at an event like the Greater Britain Exhibition in 1899.

Source: BFI

Synopsis
No titles. Static shot. An Indian woman (dressed in a sari) emerges from an Indian style doorway accompanied by a child. To the sides of the doorway seem to be a painted backdrop indicating a stone building. The entrance is flanked by seven women and children in costumes. The woman in the sari sprinkles something over the women - a blessing? The woman is then handed two large torches that she holds in either hand and a banner which she holds across her waist. The banner reads `A Happy New Year' The torches are lit and the other women and children sprinkle something on the woman (30). The same sequence is repeated twice more (91ft). (Shotlist)

Work history
Note. Originally filmed in 17.5mm. The three sequences were made in an attempt to obtain a steady picture. The first sequence is the best. The second shows jumping and the third, jumping and the 17.5 perforation.

Source: BFI - Collections