A Throw of Dice

Prapancha Pash (A Throw of Dice)
Charu Roy and Seeta Devi in the 1929 film Prapancha Pasha (A Throw of Dice)
Directed by	Franz Osten
Produced by	Nadine Luque Tim Pearce Himansu Rai Bruce Wolfe
Written by	W.A Burton Max Jungk Niranjan Pal (story)
Starring	Seeta Devi Himansu Rai Charu Roy Modhu Bose
Music by	Willy Schmidt-Gentner Nitin Sawhney (2006)
Cinematography	Emil Schünemann
Distributed by	(International) Fandango (U.K) BFI (British Film Institute)
Release date	16 August 1929 31 August 2007 (Re-release)
Running time	74 min
Country	Germany British India United Kingdom

A Throw of Dice (Prapancha Pash) is a 1929 silent film by German-born director Franz Osten, based on an episode from the Indian epic The Mahabharata.

Osten made 19 films in India between 1926 and 1939, and A Throw of Dice formed the final part of a trilogy of Indo-German productions by Osten and Indian actor-producer Himanshu Rai, the other two being Prem Sanyas (1925) and Shiraz (1928). After a gap, Osten returned to India, and worked on Bombay Talkies with Rai. During the production of Kangan (The Bangle) in 1939, Osten, a member of the Nazi Party, was arrested by British colonial officials, and was incarcerated until the end of the Second World War.

A Throw of Dice has been in the British Film Institute (BFI)’s archives since 1945, though rarely seen. In 2006, in honour of the 60th anniversary of Indian independence, the film was digitally restored, then re-released at the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on 13 June 2008, with a new orchestral score by British Indian composer Nitin Sawhney. The United States release occurred on 30 July 2008 during the Grant Park Music Festival at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois.

The movie is about two kings vying for the love of a hermit's daughter, the beautiful Sunita. The two kings, Ranjit and Sohan, share a passion for gambling and decide to play a game of craps to determine who will marry her. Sunita wishes to marry Ranjit. Ranjit loses the game to the nefarious Sohan and as a forfeit becomes his slave. Sunita soon uncovers the truth about Sohan's evil deeds and to escape punishment he hurls himself off a cliff into the rapids below. Ranjit and Sunita are reunited and married.