Dawinder Bansal’s film Jambo Cinema tells the story of her father’s video store – including classifying films based on how angry the characters looked on the cover
Dawinder Bansal is trying to pinpoint exactly when she realised that she’d been part of a criminal enterprise. Aged eight, she’d taken on some work for her family’s video rental store in Wolverhampton. “And it wasn’t until years later when I was talking about my past with a friend, that I thought: ‘Oh my god, I used to do the piracy, that was me! I was the chief pirate officer!’”
It’s a tale she recounts in her charming short film Jambo Cinema (co-directed with Anthony Davies), which tells the story of her parents emigrating to the UK from the Punjab in India (via Kenya) and setting up shop in Wolverhampton – first an electrical store, then adding Bollywood rentals to the mix. In 10 minutes the film manages to cover immigration, Thatcherism, grief and much more. And it’s also honest enough to confess to some of her dad’s more, shall we say, Del Boyish leanings – struggling to turn a profit from his rentals, he asked his two daughters to sit at home and watch the films while recording them on several VHS machines at once.
