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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.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Talking to the Air premiering in Kathmandu!

When I first dragged Sophie to Nepal to shoot our film, Daughters of the Curved Moon, she came across a book in the old Pilgrim's bookshop in Thamel, Kathmandu, about the horse culture in the district of Mustang. Sophie has a company, Horsefly Films and they have been making a series of stunning documentary films about rare horse breeds and equine culture. Her interest was piqued and she started doing research about this mysterious place and its history with the horse. Every summer, they have a spectacular festival that celebrates horsemanship called Yarthung Festival in Lo Monthang and Muktinath. She decided to make a film about the event and the rich history of horsemanship in this fascinating region of Nepal.


The film is called Talking to the Air : The Horses of the Last Forbidden Kingdom




Last summer, August 2013, before the Shakti team returned to Jumla for the fourth and final shoot, three of the team - Sophie, Nisha and I - travelled to Mustang. Tales of this epic journey were recorded on my travel blog - and now we have the first part of the behind the scenes film version of the very same journey:

WATCH THIS BEHIND THE SCENES FOOTAGE OF OUR CRAZY JOURNEY. IT'S SO GOOD I DON'T EVEN MIND BEING ON CAMERA!




We were there with a partner company, Adventure Nepal and the wonderful Dipendra Bhandari, a film maker from Kathmandu that I've known for some time and his assistant Rajan. It was an amazing time shooting in Upper and Lower Mustang interviewing people about the festivals and about the horse culture in their communities. The terrain and geology is absolutely stunning. I took a lot of photos, some of which Sophie has cleaned the dust off and posted on the, Talking to the Air facebook page.



Sophie has been working hard on the edit this past year and the film is nearly finished. The  exciting part is we have having the world première - "official selection" no less - at the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival - KIMFF! It's the biggest film festival in Nepal and I've been attending the last few years - very proud to be part of the team - it's my first film in a festival too! And in my home town to boot!

We are now in the very last stretch of post-production and have launched a crowd-funding campaign to raise the finances to get it all finished to present at the festival. Check out the video - it has some cool clips from the film. It's really close to the wire now - this platform has an 80% minimum so we need to raise at least $6400 to get any of the money!
ONLY 8 DAYS LEFT! CHECK IT OUT: http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/talking-air-horses-last-forbidden-kingdom