This up-close portrait of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi reveals the complex dynamics of the world’s largest democracy. Gandhi electrifies crowds as she travels throughout the country campaigning for her son, Rajiv, whom she has maneuvered into politics. It is clear she is preparing him to succeed her, as she did her father, Jawaharlal Nehru.
“I wanted to make this film for 10 years, because there’s not a woman in the world in a more dramatic situation,” director Anne Drew told an interviewer. “Over the past 10 years the drama has increased. I knew there was a complex story there.”