Jai Ho 2014
The Film brings to its viewers, a hitherto unseen and unheard narrative of one of the greatest musicians the world has ever known: A. R. Rahman
The Film brings to its viewers, a hitherto unseen and unheard narrative of one of the greatest musicians the world has ever known: A. R. Rahman
Women of rural Punjab have long forgotten to sing the songs of harvest in the midst of escalating farm suicides. The Film witnesses the march of widows of the 'Green Revolution' in Punjab as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination, in their bid to survive. For the first time, Candles in the Wind tells the story from inside this area, known as the green reserve of India, a place which is relentlessly transforming itself into a social desert, where women are obliged to take over dramatic situations without any form of protection or assistance. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India - a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.
The Film investigates the state of news in India. Journalism is up for sale and selling of editorial space has become both blatant and institutionalised.
The Film follows the initiatives of conservation biologist Purnima Burman and her quest to involve community women in Assam, to save the Hargilla, a critically endangered bird, coming together as the Hargilla Army.
The Film looks at the transformation of Dalit women’s lives through their involvement in an ecological movement for sustainable farming in Andhra Pradesh.
The monsoons are only as old as the Himalayas… but the paths are harder to trace... and easier to lose…
Guler, a small principality near Kangra, was an artistic and cultural wellspring since it's accidental inception in the 15th century. Many greats like painters Pandit Seu, his sons Manaku, Nainsukh, and the poet Brajraj were born here. Today the whole system of patronage under which lofty endeavours were possible even in financially austere conditions is gone. And tragically even the physical landscape is submerged under a dam. The film seeks out some traces of the submerged past, through the memories of those left behind, a condensation of a bygone civilization.
The primitive Paudi Bhuinyas of Khandadhar Hills in Odisha have grown up in a culture of co-existence, with trees, rivers, streams, animals and birds, profoundly threatened by mining. Their Maha Sardar, Bilua Naik, articulates with wisdom, in a language difficult to ignore, the agonies and anguish of the people and their earth.
Why do we have such a contentious relationship with the idea of dying? What keeps us from looking at death, or the dying, in the eye, from making peace with the process? The Film wonders if the process of dying can become meaningful and if embracing our own mortality might be the key to a more fulfilling life.
The film explores the transition of an entire village from one that slaughtered thousands of Amur Falcons, the longest travelling raptors in the world, who fly from Siberia every fall to roost in Pangti, a Lotha Naga village in Nagaland, to becoming their most fervent preservationists.
Three women from Nizamuddin basti, Delhi, take a decision that sets them on a journey to find themselves- they join a gym.
In a canvas spread over four decades, a banyan tree, on the banks of the lake Chilika, silently whispers tales of the lake and her fisher folk. From the times when there was no export bazaar, to the time when there may be no lake.
Travelling through tiger hotspots like Sariska, Panna and Buxa, the Film attempts to unravel the tiger crisis and encapsulate thirty years of lackadaisical attitude towards conservation in India.
illuminating story of Chandannagar Light Art industry going global.
Vaikhari, which in Sanskrit means intelligent and articulate utterances, primarily focusses on "padhant" which is the art of recitation of mnemonic syllables used in Hindusthani Classical Music and Dance. The film incorporates different artistic streams in allusion to padhant, thereby aiming at a profound aesthetic experience of rhythmic utterances in its multiple manifestations. Kalidasa's immortal Meghdootam serves a template for narrative development while creating a realm of different temporal designs fabricated by various rhythmic elements (percussion, dance) where padhant lies at the nucleus of contemplation and subsequent artistic expansion.
The Film takes its viewers into the sacred groves of the Himalayas that are still alive because of the faith of its people. It traces the struggles of the people to save their forests from being plundered, as they crumble under the pressure of countless development projects.
A video essay on the Ghoramara low–lying islands, disappearing quickly, due to erosion and sea level rise – in the process, also documenting the disappearance of its grassroots imaginaries.
Far East at the Himalayan border of India and China, live the indigenous Adi people, with a unique culture with animistic rituals around nature. The elegant Siang that originates in Tibet and flows down through the Adi villages is the new battleground for power. Alongside its blue waters, amidst green mountains and pristine valleys, drift voices - unheard, unwritten and unsung. A series of encounters with the Adis, near the old town of Pasighat, this is a tale of their inspiring resilience and hope.
The Greens of Garo captures the vision and the spirit behind the unique initiative of putting aside village community land as Village Reserve Forests by two hundred tribal villages of Garo Hills, Meghalaya, which has resulted in wild life and habitat conservation and in the affirmation of indigenous rights over community-controlled resources, among other positive impacts.
The Film understands wild life rescue and rehabilitation in one of the prime wild life habitats of India – Kaziranga, Assam. The Center for Wild Life Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) along with the forest department has been rescuing animals for over a decade. Many of these juvenile animals are successfully hand-raised and rehabilitated back in the wild, while rescued adults are treated and released as soon as possible.