Indian filmmaker Ashim Ahluwalia’s beautiful short Events in a Cloud Chamber creates a dialogue with history by remaking a lost 1969 film of the same name realized on 16mm by the artist Akbar Padamsee, who also appears through archival footage and audio fragments of interviews.

Ahluwalia says, “Padamsee tried to make something different nearly fifty years ago, at a time when the world wasn’t ready for it, and accidentally and almost single-handedly invented abstract film art in India. We remade his film Events in a Cloud Chamber mostly from his memory, a process that posed a problem since he’s almost 89 years old today and most of his stories are confusing or hazy. Our work gave occasion to contemplate what it means to be an aging artist. I’ve always liked the eeriness of ghost stories, and in a way, my Events in a Cloud Chamber is one. It discusses not only the disappearance of an artwork and the thwarting of an experimental film movement, but also ideas about mortality. My film isn’t purely a remake of Padamsee’s radical and unique lost film. It invokes vanished art, death, and the phantoms we leave behind.”