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The birth of Shakti PIctures

Shakti Pictures is a visual arts film company. Shakti means divine, creative power, often associated with female energy.

Shakti Pictures was formed in October 2010 in order to produce our inaugural project, Daughters of the Curved Moon (working title), a documentary set in the Himalayas of western Nepal. The film is about a community in Jumla; a portrait of a lifestyle and culture. We are looking at women's changing role in society in rural Nepal. The inspiration came from a group of village women who attended a training programme run by a local charity, Empowering Women of Nepal and the subsequent affect it had on them.

In November 2011 we completed the first segment of shooting. We returned in March 2012, February 2013 and August 2013 for further shoots, tracking the passage of time, how things are changing in the lives of our friends and in the community in Jumla. This blog is the story of our ongoing progress.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

the final and most important stage of this journey has begun...

I am back in Jumla now. It feels good to be here again.

The training starts tomorrow and this year it is in the village of Urthu about a three hour walk from the district town where the training was last year. (You can read my post about it from last year here).

After and probably during the training I'll be figuring out as much as I can about how things will work when we come back in the autumn to shoot. I am very excited to see the women again, as the village we are going to, Urthu, is home to quite a few of the ladies I taught last year and will likely be featured in the film. In fact, two of the ladies showed up here in town to greet us. It was so wonderful to see them! We will all be walking back to the village together when they have finished their shopping in the bazaar. They will no doubt put me to shame at my level of fitness as we trek to their home.

Nonetheless, I am very excited to be going to the village and spending this time with them all. This is truly the beginning of the most important stage of the planning for this film as I will be looking at all the logistics of how we are going to work the shoot (power considerations, distances between villages, willingness of villagers etc), figuring out where and who we will focus and enlisting the help of who will be our 'crew'.

This is really it! I am here!