The 'Moving Upstream: Ganga’ documentary was filmed over 6 months, on a 3000km walk along the river Ganga in India. This documentary explores the idea of walking, people’s responses to a walking traveler in this fast paced era, and an evolving relationship with the natural world. Aimed at an urban audience that is largely disconnected from the realities of rural India, the film provides an unfiltered view into the thoughts and life of people living next to the river. The film amplifies voices and concerns of the riparian community - a severely under-represented section of society in India. This documentary also successfully breaks out of the stereotypical mould of religion, religious centres and urban India into which the Ganga has been forcefully restricted through politics and popular media - much like the numerous dams on the river itself that hold back its true nature. A modern day journey along an ancient river.

Moving Upstream: Ganga

Filmed on a 3000km walk along River Ganga, 'Moving Upstream: Ganga’ explores the idea of walking, people’s responses to a walking traveler in this fast paced era and an evolving relationship with the natural world.

83 year old Vidyadutt Sharma holds the record for growing the heaviest radish in India weighing 23 kgs. He now aims to beat the world record of 31 kgs. Over the last five decades, he has built up Moti Bagh, his 5 acre farm in a small Himalayan village in northern India. Around him lie 7000 ghost villages, left to die, with no one to till the land – a chilling testimony to large scale migration by locals in search of employment in the cities. With no manpower at their disposal, the few locals are employing Nepali labour. But there is unease because of this dependence and the growing influence of the Nepalis. As market forces exert pressure, family dynamics are also changing. Vidyadutt's journalist son, Tribhuvan, lives and works in Pauri, a large town 35 kms from Moti Bagh. His two children wish to chase their own dreams in the metros. Vidyadutt Sharma, farmer, activist and poet, chronicles the changing landscape in verses of resistance. As he and Ram Singh, his Nepali farmhand, plough the fields to keep a dream called Moti Bagh alive, we wonder if it will ever return to its old glory.

MOTI BAGH

Against the forces of migration, an 83 year old farmer-poet in a remote Himalayan village in India, struggles to keep his farm alive.

With climate change knocking at our doors, we seek people who can change the script.A school dropout in Lapodia - a nondescript Rajasthan village - Laxman Singh seems an unlikely hero. Inspired by Manoj Kumar in 'Roti, Kapda aur Makaan', Laxman quit school to study why farmers migrated as cheap labour – forsaking their parched fields. He saw what was always in plain sight: Water – or the lack of it. With five villagers, he set out to repair the village pond. Word spread like the desert wind. Soon, hundreds of villagers joined hands.Ponds, wells, a new canal and a checkerboard of shallow ditches to slow the rainwater drain-off... In a few years, Lapodia wore many shades of green. Laxman Singh's unorthodox ideas created an oasis in the desert, and a voluntary force that changed the destiny of 58 neighbouring villages. When he received international recognition, the once-hostile government replicated the Lapodia model in 700 villages. Anticlimax. Piped water reached Lapodia in 2015, flushing ponds out of people's consciousness. MNREGS dented the tradition of voluntary labour for collective good.In 2017, after 3 successive droughts, dry taps made people realise that survival depends on local water bodies – not on distant dams. The circle - and the irony - is complete.

LAKSHMANREKHA

Some move mountains, others launch a thousand ships. Laxman Singh turned 58 villages into an oasis in the desert of Rajasthan.

Somi and her husband are striving to forge a new identity after fighting alongside the Naxalites, a communist guerrilla group that has been waging war on the Indian State since the 60’s. After a decade of armed struggle for the rights of their tribal communities, the couple deserted the movement and surrendered to the police. Ever since, they have been trying to educate their son and reconcile their violent past with the desire to integrate into the Indian society.

A Rifle and a Bag

A young Indian couple of surrendered communist rebels (Naxalites) is fighting for their children's future.

Ashwani's passion to save wild leopards brings him close to White Tail, the mother leopard of Shimla. He films her with his rudimentary camera and screens his films in the villages around Shimla. However, his journey also brings him face to face with some heart breaking happenings; occurring as a result of human-leopard conflict. Lakhpat Singh Rawat is the official shooter of the Uttarakhand Forest department, having killed over 50 leopards that were perceived to be man eaters. While he feels happy to save the children and adult victims from the marauding leopards, he is also uneasy about his role in brutally eliminating these beautiful, lethal, slender and spotted beasts! This probing documentary navigates the uncharted hill territories of Shimla and Uttarakhand, trying to get into the psyches of humans and leopards. Is there any solution to this critical conflict that has been raging for over a century?

Shoot That Leopard

To mitigate human - leopard conflict, one man shoots leopards with his camera, another with his gun.

NOT JUST ROADS is an ethnographic documentary film that narrates the story of a massive urban transformation underway in India. ​ Highways are being constructed at an unprecedented rate of 23 kilometers per day under the Indian government's Bharatmala (‘Garland of Limitless Roads’) program. The program aims to open new territories for the emerging Indian middle class. Currently, the territory is inhabited by villages, working class neighbourhoods, and nomadic herders. It is criss-crossed by native trails and vital ecological commons. This film captures the story of one such highway outside Delhi, from the perspective of human and non-human actors.

Not Just Roads

NOT JUST ROADS is an ethnographic documentary film that narrates the story of a massive urban transformation underway in India.

Indian Features

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