Traces of Sandalwood 2014

The film opens with a shattering moment: 6-year-old Mina, Nandita Das, saves her newborn sister Sita from drowning, taking on the heavy burden of care and protection for both of them. But when their mother dies years later, their father hands them over to a woman from the city. Sita is left with nuns, while Mina is consigned to a brothel, from which she narrowly escapes. She finds work as a maid for a wealthy family, where she forms an alliance with Sanjay, the handsome son of the house.

That melodrama shifts into a film-within-the-film, an autobiographical opus Mina, now a Bollywood superstar, is crafting with her director husband—the same Sanjay, Subodh Maskara. This bold meta-gesture marks the latest chapter in Mina’s long, tireless 30-year search for her missing sister, a quest that threads through her life as a performer and a person.

Mina finally locates Sita in Barcelona and travels with Sanjay to be reunited with her. But Sita has grown into Paula, a cold, remote scientist who is completely unaware that she was adopted or that her origins lie in India. Paula responds with blunt dismissal to Mina and her story, at first. Yet a tense conversation with her adoptive parents and the extensive documentation Mina has gathered gradually opens a crack in her defenses.

Paula’s adoptive father and mother become part of the story, his presence felt in the quiet, protective steadiness of a household, Gal Soler and Rosa Novell. As Paula wrestles with memory and identity, she is pulled toward a broader world she hadn’t imagined. The journey takes her into an Indian video store, where a patient, open-minded stranger named Prakash, Naby Dakhli, introduces her to her sister’s films and to a culture that mirrors, reshapes, and enlarges her view of herself.

Through these encounters, Paula’s guardedness gradually yields to curiosity and connection. The story traces how a young woman, who believed she was simply a product of circumstance, begins to reassemble a family history she never knew and discovers a sense of belonging that transcends borders. The film-within-the-film and the real-life search intertwine, offering a slow-burn portrait of memory, kinship, and the power of art to bridge lives that time nearly forgot.