Spirit of the Forest tells the story of a little girl from a village in south India, who stumbles upon a very special place on her way home from school –– a ‘sacred grove’, a pocket of the forest largely untouched by human hands thanks to centuries-old folk practices of protecting natural habitats.

This particular sacred grove happens to be a ‘Myristica swamp’, a freshwater ecosystem named after a wild nutmeg tree, uniquely found in this corner of the world. When the girl picks up a nutmeg seed amongst gnarly knee roots on the swamp floor, she disturbs the spirit of the forest. What follows is an adventure that illuminates the origins of this ancient swampland: from the formation of the Western Ghats at the break up of Gondwanaland, through her ancestral history, and up to the present day.

The flora and fauna featured in this film are accurate to the habitat, while the roots of this ecological fairy tale are derived from contemporary scientific research. The film aims to weave together all these elements—plants, animals, people, spirituality, culture, art and science—into a beautiful web of life.