This article zooms into the main features of the DEFA newsreel productions related to India. The first section introduces the different kinds of images of India in GDR’s newsreel films. It is based on certain recurring themes that may be instructive in categorizing and analyzing GDR newsreel films on India. The second section deals with the nature of the collections and the location of newsreels within the organizing structure of the Progress Film Archive as the official archive of DEFA productions. The last section discusses the significance of these sources for scholarship on the Cultural Cold War. In a digital world saturated with historical and contemporary material on past events, this understudied archive may provide insights into pasts, which are very much part of our present