In the Hunza Valley in the northern Pakistan there is a magnificent turquoise lake. But the lake hasn’t been always there: it is the result of a massive landslide that blocked a river, causing

It is the year 2000 and most of Afghanistan is under the control of the Taliban. Hearing that many of Afghanistain’s musicians are now in exile across the border in Pakistan, ethnomusicologist John

When Granada Television visited Afghanistan to make the award-winning Disappearing World 'The Kirghiz', they were a proud, independent, nomadic people who made their living by rearing herds of yaks

In this fifth and final film in the Doon School quintet, MacDougall focuses on the life of one student whom he discovers at the school. The film was made in parallel with 'The New Boys' and

The film investigates and portrays the life of Afghan refugees living in and around the city of Peshawar in northern Pakistan through the experiences of the musician Amir. The aspirations of Afghan

By the coastal belts of Bangladesh, in a small village named Sutarkhali, Rakhi, 27, lives with her husband Soumen, 32, and their 6 year-old son Rahul. Fighting against all the odds of the woods,

Filmed as a collaborative project with Arnav Koshy in 2008, this film explores the mind and activities of an intelligent and observant child of six. Arnav is fascinated by the geology, plant-life,

Filmed in South India, Andhra Pradesh, at Rishi Valley School, founded by the 20th Century Indian thinker Krishnamurti, 'Awareness' explores the sensibilities of two groups of young Indian teenagers,

12 castes of gypsy artists ended their nomadic ways nearly 45 years ago to squat in New Delhi. Now the slum is being dismantled and rehabilitated. These are their last months in the colony as they

A once unremarkable site of multi-faith pilgrimage to a Sufi Saint has been transformed and its local history rewritten - the film documents the journey of Charlotte, a student undertaking her PhD

“Business Process Outsourcing” is the fastest growing industry in the world. In India, approximately 350,000 people are currently working in call centres to maintain the contact between western

Every winter, over a period of six days, the lamas of Lingthem's village monastery hold their annual cham. These dramatic ritual masked dances impart elementary Buddhist teachings while providing

Sunder Nagri (Beautiful City) is a small working class colony on the margins of India’s capital city, Delhi. Most families residing here come from a community of weavers. The last ten years have

This film presents the work of four young filmmakers of New Delhi. From March to May 2012 they took part in a video workshop at the CIE Experimental Basic School, a government primary school. Each of

A diya is a small terra cotta oil lamp used throughout India in Hindu ceremonies. The film follows the life history of an object through the every day experience of people who make, sell and use it

David MacDougall's long term visual study completed. The Doon School, located in Dehra Dun in Uttaranchal, is perhaps the most famous boys’ boarding school in India. Although it has sometimes been

The film offers an experimental approach to the comparative study of cultures: the monks of a Tibetan monastery compare their own flutes with the Swiss alphorn and the Dutch windhorn introduced to

The Sufi shrine of Mira Datar in North Gujarat is a large pilgrimage centre specialising in healing possession and mental illness. It has become a site of experimenting with new forms of community

A monolithic building on the outskirts of Delhi provides food and shelter for 350 boys. Some are orphans, some have been abandoned, others have run away from home. About half are held under a court

A small group of farmers belonging to the Halakki Gowda tribe live near a small beach in a valley in southern India. When the Swedish film maker Hasse Wester was first there twenty years ago the

The film narrates the story of Uma Giri, a Swedish woman who has become a Hindu nun, called Uma Giri. She is one of the few western women to be accepted into the most radical order of wandering

The Kalasha are a tribal people, 3,000 strong, who live in the high valleys of the Hindu Kush mountains in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The Kalasha are unique as a pagan people in

This third film in the Doon School quintet follows the main protagonist of 'With Morning Hearts' into the next phase of his life in Jaipur House, one of the five main houses of the school. There he

In ever-increasing numbers Sinhalese of all religions (Muslims, Christians and Buddhists) are turning to Kataragama, an ancient Hindu God, at times of trouble and desperation. Once a year pilgrims

For more than a century Britain was engaged in war with the Pashtun tribesmen of India's North West frontier. It began with the bloodiest massacre in the history of the British Empire when, in

Kusum is a 14-year-old Indian girl. She lives and attends school in Delhi. Kaushal, her father, drives a motorised rickshaw and works his fingers to the bone to support his family. Sumitra, Kusum’s

A brief glimpse into the Foundation Fior Di Loto girls' school, this film explores the competing ideas of traditional and contemporary womanhood in Rajasthan, India. Four girls introduce us to the

Alampu is a beautiful and exceedingly remote village in Nepal. The majority of the settlers there are Thami people, one of the indigenous groups of Nepal. More than 90 percent of them have been

This film is set in a traditional household in Nepal and documents a servant girl, Nani; a married woman, Sarita; and a mother-in-law, Ama. In interesting mixture of entrapment, duty and tradition unfold.

Aslam sells medicines for sexual problems on the pavements of Meena Bazar near Jama Masjid in Delhi. Khalifa Barkat presides over an wrestling gym (akhara) in the adjacent park and puts a group of

The social dynamics of the group is the focus of this study of life in Foot House, one of Doon School’s dormitories for new boys. It begins a few days before the boys appear and shows them

Against the bleached sky of Rajasthan, we encounter the women of a small Muslim village as they engage in their work. Here, water binds their daily labour rituals: they collect and carry water in

There are twelve million Pathans. Bound by a common language, a common heritage and the unifying force of Islam, these proud and independent people do not acknowledge the geographical boundary which

This film is an exploration of the cultural and personal meanings of photographs in a hill station in northern India. The ‘photo wallahs’ are the local photographers of Mussoorie, a town which

Pink saris are worn by the Gulabi Gang, a group of women vigilantes in Northern India. From the untouchable caste, they resist being condescended to as the lowest social class. They have a champion

Playing with Nan is the story of a Nepali young man who migrated to work in a Nepali restaurant in northern Japan. The film explores his daily life at work and his family at home, which reflects

Q2P is a film about toilets and the city. It sifts through the dream of Mumbai as a future Shanghai and searches for public toilets, watching who has to queue to pee. As the film observes who has

Dorji Bhutia, a Buddhist monk and a reputed mask-maker with supernatural powers of bringing or stopping rain chose a self-determined death at the age of eighty-six. Dorji leaves his mystic image

This film is set in the city of Jamnagar, western India. The film focuses on the emotions, quality of life, and on duty. Raju’s friendship with different people, including the director, provide a

Street boys Ravi and Bhajay lead a tough life on the pavements of Mumbai in India. To get away from it, they visit the nearby holy city of Ujjain with the film-maker. But the call of life on the streets is still strong.

In 2010 Afghan musicologist Dr. Ahmad Sarmast opened the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), a coeducational vocational music school in Kabul that teaches Afghan, Indian and Western

The film is an intimate portrait of Merayk, an 80 years old Lepcha shaman or Padim. Merayk lives with his family in Dzongu, a Lepcha reserve in North Sikkim. He performs healing rituals for

When Salma, a young Muslim girl in a south Indian village, was 13 years old, her family locked her up for 25 years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage. During that time, words were

From temples to recording studios of Kochi, Kerala in South India, we follow four musicians -a student and his master, a professional and a promoter - all uniquely devoted to the music that permeates

Inspired by the cinema of Lumière and the ideas of the 20th century Indian thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti, David MacDougall follows up the Doon School Quintet, his series of films about a traditional

Seed on Earth is a film about everyday life in rural Bangladesh (village of Janta, near Bishnupur town). It follows the daily schedule of two families and observes the complementary and difference of

Thami is a village 12,000 feet up in the Himalayas in the Kingdom of Nepal. As the film's opening shots illustrate, in a type of filmic short-hand, Thami is composed of a patchwork of individual

The documentary, filmed during ethnographic field research, shows three portraits of ‘ordinary’ personalities — Mala, a young weaver sharing a one-bedroom house with nine siblings; Santa Cruz,

For generations the Patua (Chitrakara) communities of West Bengal have been painters and singers of stories depicted in scrolls. The film follows the daily lives of Muslim Patua women from Naya

Through following the daily life of a home for the elderly in Kathmandhu, Nepal, run by Catholic nuns but situated beside the cremation ghats of Pashupathinath Hindu temple, this film explores

A film about the famous experimental, co-educational boarding school in South India, the Rishi Valley School, founded by the influential Indian thinker Krishnamurti. In this film about a progressive

‘A Spark in Him’ is a film about the life story of Sajay Kumar, a young man without arms who lives in a home for disabled children in Kerala, India, and studies at the College of Fine Arts. By

Tara's Footprint skilfully conjures the atmosphere of Khechuperi, a village in the Himalayas in north eastern India. Eschewing standard exposition the film follows four young siblings as they go

In Tia village, in an isolated area of Ladakh - North West India - lives an amchi (a local herbal doctor) and his wife. It is summer - a short season in the Indian Himalayas and the only period of

This outstanding documentary is placed in Northern India among a group of Tibetan refugees. They celebrate the New Year, following a ritual of their religion, Bonpo, which is older than Buddhism.

The film illustrates the changes the Lepcha of the Dzongu reserve, North Sikkim, have been through in the last 60 years. From the 1940s, the Lepcha of Tingvong village gradually abandoned hunting,

From the 16th century the Indian village of Delwara in southern Rajasthan was ruled as a principality of the kingdom of Mewar. Its palace, which overlooks the village, is now a luxury hotel - a

'Unravel' follows the Western worlds least wanted clothes, on a journey across Northern India, from sea to industrial interior. They get sent to Panipat, a sleepy town and the only place in the world

Shot in the city of Heart, western Afghanistan 1994, in the period between the fall of the last leftist government and the coming of the Taliban, this is a portrait film of an outstanding musician,

In a temple dedicated to Hanuman in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, a priest flouts convention by marrying couples who are shunned elsewhere: mostly those who have eloped from families who disapprove of their

Bunty, Kamal, Sanjay and Sanju, best of friends and residents of Jehangiripuri, a working class colony on the outskirts of Delhi are young and trying to make their lives in an environment which is

“My late great grandfather was a Bengali who came to Shillong in the early 1900s - long before the present political border divided the lands.” After the creation of borders between India and

This film continues MacDougall's long-term study of an elite boys' boarding school in northern India. It focuses on a group of twelve-year-olds during their first year in one of the 'houses' for new

The Women Weavers of Assam focuses on the craft, labour and the everyday lives of a group of women weavers in India’s northeastern state of Assam. The weavers belong to a non-profit collective