SBS has something for all Australians during this year’s Festivals of Lights, with a bigger than ever cross-network offering to celebrate Diwali, Deepavali, Bandi Chhor Diwas and Tihar. From now and through into November, SBS is sharing a distinctive and curated collection of movies, documentaries, recipes, articles, cultural explainers, student resources and festival guides.
The Festivals of Lights are celebrated by over a billion people globally, including by more than one million Australians of South Asian heritage.
Lighting candles in India. Credit: PaTrY/Getty Images/EyeEm
This year, the SBS network marks these vibrant celebrations with new podcasts from SBS Audio, engaging dramas and movies at SBS On Demand, food shows and much more.
SBS Audio will offer a new podcast series, My Regional Diwali, which features conversations with regional Australians to understand how they celebrate Diwali. The My Diwali podcast returns with another insightful season, with new interviews with South Asian sportspeople, politicians and artists including cricket royalty, former captain of the Australian women’s cricket team, Lisa Sthalekar, and Australian Bollywood star, Pallavi Sharda. SBS Hindi also talks to culinary expert Sandeep Pandit, sharing recipes for sugar-free Diwali sweets. SBS Audio will also publish cultural explainer videos on the celebration, run audience competitions, publish guides to community festivals, and share community news in Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu via new destination channel SBS South Asian.
SBS Spice, the English-language digital channel for Gen Z South Asian Australians, will release a new audio and video series, Chosen Family, for those celebrating away from home. The series explores how young people are finding a sense of identity and belonging in Australia, giving voice to students studying away from home, interracial couples, and queer and trans people on how they create their own special Diwali traditions and how they make the festival personal.
Sridevi (Shahana Goswami) and Yash (Akshay Ajit Singh) walk through the streets of Jaipur on their first date in 'Four Years Later'. Credit: SBS / Megha Chhattani
At SBS On Demand, the Diwali / Deepavali hub brings together curated collections embracing the themes of the festival, from light to love to eliminating darkness. This includes SBS’s commissioned original drama series Four Years Later, which tells the difficult love story of newlyweds Sridevi and Yash who are separated after their wedding in India when Yash is offered a medical traineeship in Australia. Iconic feature documentary Brand Bollywood Downunder (available from 1 November) celebrates Bollywood cinema with stars Anupam Kher , Farhan Akhtar and Ashutosh Gowariker. Laugh out loud with Meet the Patels, a comedy following an Indian-American man who embarks on a quest to find a wife the traditional Indian way.
An SBS World Movies movie marathon will entertain on Friday 1 November with non-stop line up of feel-good cinema from 5.25pm. Beloved Bollywood remake, Bride and Prejudice, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Martin Henderson and Naveen William Sidney Andrews, sees a mother eager to find suitable husbands for her five daughters (streaming at SBS On Demand for 14 days after it airs); award-winning visual masterpiece Last Film Show follows 10-year-old Samay and his new-found fascination of film; Maja Ma chronicles a mother’s journey of self-acceptance, caught between family expectations and her own truth; and popular dramedy, India Sweets And Spices, starring Sophia Taylor Ali, Rish Shah and Ashritha Kancharla sees a college freshman return home and upend her family's well-ordered life with her brash new independence.
Bride and Prejudice
On SBS Food, audiences are in for a treat including the return of David Rocco’s Dolce India and Hidden Flavours of India: North East, filmed in picturesque north-east India, both airing weekdays from 14 October. See chef Ranveer Brar searching for forgotten recipes in The Wandering Chef with new episodes Monday to Friday from 14 October and learn new cooking tips with Luke Nguyen as he explores Southern India in Luke Nguyen’s India from Monday to Saturday from 21 October. And you can find vibrant dishes for your celebrations in the Diwali recipe collection.
Audiences can also engage with a special three-part social media video series for Diwali made in collaboration with food influencer The Modern Desi. Watch how to make traditional Indian recipes for Diwali celebrations, highlighting India’s diverse regional culinary heritage.
SBS’s education arm, SBS Learn, is fostering understanding in the classroom with ready-to-use resources for teachers with activities for primary and secondary students including how, why and when Diwali/Deepavali is celebrated. Students can deepen their cultural understanding by making a paper diya, (pronounced dee-aa, an oil lamp used during the Festivals of Lights) and by making a South Asian sweet treat (mithai) – barfi.
Around Australia, SBS will partner with more than 20 community celebrations organised by local councils and associations, bringing festivities to every state and territory including regional centres in Alice Springs, Mildura and Queanbeyan. Check SBS’s Festival Guide for details of this year’s events.
SBS Managing Director, James Taylor said, “SBS is proud to share the rich and vibrant celebrations of the Festivals of Lights across the network, enabling all Australians to engage in the diverse festivities that are grounded in unity and joy."
