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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.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Returning to Jumla : Fourth & Final

We are in Pokhara - me Sophie, Nisha and awaiting the arrival of the fourth member of our team, Soraj. Tomorrow we will all pile all of our stuff and selves into a jeep for the 14 hour drive to Nepalgunj. The convenient direct flight from KTM via Pokhara to Jumla no longer exists, so we must fly from Nepalgunj to Jumla.

None of us are too excited about the late summer heat that Nepalgunj will press down on us, or the enthusiasm of the mosquitos there, but hopefully we will get on our flight to Jumla the following morning so our time in the dusty border town will be brief.


Returning to Jumla at this time of year is going to feel quite different - at least in terms of the post-monsoon greener landscape. I suspect it will also feel different because we know this is our last shoot, the last time the team will work together in this capacity, possibly the last time all four of us will be in Jumla together.

Being our fourth time, the experience of shooting in Jumla has become so familiar to all of us. We know what we are doing, we are accustomed to the terrain now, we are returning to friends. For Sophie and me, it feels a little like returning home; for Soraj and Nisha, it is returning home (as neither of them lives in Jumla at the moment).

We know what to expect. But as with all documentary film making, we also don't know what will happen.

Following the shoot, we will be continuing with the translation process and getting deeper into the actual edit. A finished product still seems like a distant reality.

Sometimes it feels quite mind-boggling how much work lies ahead, but when I think of how far we have come, from my first visit to Jumla in May 2010, when I had the idea that we should make a film about the women I was watching dance around the training room - when I think about all we have achieved since that moment, my mind boggles even more.