The film documents the two benefit concerts that were organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar to raise funds for refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War, and were held on Sunday, 1 August 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The film was released on DVD in 2005 accompanied by a newly created documentary feature, The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited with George Harrison and Friends, which included recollections from many of the project's participants and contextual input from then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, US Fund for UNICEF president Charles Lyons and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof.

Saul Swimmer's Concert for Bangladesh documentary combined footage from both of the Madison Square Garden shows held on 1 August 1971, using George Harrison's preference of the performances of the songs.

[4][5] The compromised quality would result in some brutal edits in the released movie[5][6] – Eric Clapton, for instance, appears to change jackets and guitar part-way through a song (Leon Russell's medley in particular).

[7] With work almost completed on the Concert for Bangladesh live album, Harrison is said to have begun editing the footage on 6 September;[8] at some stage during the next few months, he was joined in this lengthy process by Bob Dylan.

The opening of the movie features footage from the New York press conference, held at Allen Klein's ABKCO offices five days before the concerts, during which Harrison and Ravi Shankar discuss the upcoming shows.

He then introduces the first group of musicians, led by Shankar, who, like Harrison, attempts to convey the intricacies of Indian classical music to the audience, as well as outlining the reason for this "special benefit concert".

He is backed by a large band, including two drummers, Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner, pianist Leon Russell, organist Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann on bass, two other lead guitarists, Eric Clapton and Jesse Ed Davis, the four members of Badfinger on rhythm guitars and tambourine, a six-piece horn section in matching blue patterned shirts, and a small choir of backing vocalists, a few of whom are also playing percussion.

The film concludes with a spirited version of Harrison's then-current single, "Bangla Desh", intercut at first with footage of the suffering refugees the concert was aiming to provide aid for.

Greenspun bemoaned the inclusion of a loud audience track in the six-track stereophonic presentation, but otherwise applauded the filmmakers for a work that "leaves dramatic intensity to the music and the musicians, where it belongs".

[20] Reviewing the 2005 DVD release for BBC Online, Chris Jones wrote that Harrison had provided a "masterclass" to Bob Geldof in how to stage a superstar charity benefit and that "like nearly all good ideas, it worked best the first time around."

Jones said the film's highlights were abundant: "The crowd applauding Shankar tuning up; Billy Preston's joyous dancing; Leon Russell's raucous version of 'Jumping Jack Flash'.

Other interviews are with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof, both of whom talk of the historic importance of the event, as well as Apple Corps executive Neil Aspinall.

Clapton, for his part, recalls the time as a period of "retirement" and states that he "really made it hard" for himself in the concerts, choosing to play a hollow-body Gibson Byrdland for his solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", when a solid-body would have been more appropriate.

Participants in these features include Swimmer, A&M Studios engineer Norm Kinney, former Capitol Records boss Bhaskar Menon, designer Tom Wilkes, photographer Barry Feinstein, and British film mogul David Puttnam.