London (PTI): A rare film by a lesser-known Indian filmmaker found in an antique shop has been painstakingly put together and is scheduled to be shown as part of the Liverpools European Capital of Culture festivities on Friday.

The nine-minute 1920s film titled "Docker and the Rose" was produced by Shanta Rao Dutt, who left Mumbai in 1896 to follow the pioneering Lumiere brothers to France, and later went on to produce a series of films for the British raj.

Dutt was knighted in 1945 for his services during the Second World War, but returned it the next year after his son, Kiran, was deported for spying after leaking information to leader of the Indian freedom struggle.

Dutt died in 1987 at the age of 106.

The silent comedy film was produced when Dutt was in Liverpool to shoot a newsreel about the Indian Lashkars campaign for equal rights. Dutt found himself inspired to shoot his first fictional love story on the Liverpool docks.

Dutt cast a young Indian Docker as his hero, and the chambermaid from his boarding house as his heroine. During filming, Dutt fell in love with his leading lady, Mary, and married her.

Despite its light-hearted comedic tone, the authorities banned the film. Amid the controversy, Dutt and his new wife were forced to flee England for the US.

The print of the film was lost in the course of their hasty departure, until it was discovered in an antique shop in Liverpool in 2006.