Projects
Dreams of a Dark Sky
Anmol TIKOO
- India
- 75min
- DCP
- color
Synopsis
Each day, until not very long ago, most humans found themselves enveloped in darkness after sundown. Embers, lanterns, gas lamps or torches created a limited circle of light, surrendering the rest of the world to nighttime. We may still hold on to our fears of the dark, but for the most part, we have defeated it. But what do we lose when we lose the pristine night? In this film, we follow astronomers, engineers, and nomads in Ladakh, on the fraught and war-torn Indo-China border, who are attempting to create a more balanced relationship with light and darkness. The film tells the story of India’s first dark sky reserve, centered on the astronomical observatory at Hanle, the site of India’s most pristine night sky. As we get closer to the characters who live amid these telescopes, we encounter the subtleties and surprises within darkness: existentialist reckonings; night-time conversations, stories, and intimacies; nocturnal ecologies; unusual alliances and symmetries across the border; and the starfilled sky and the entire universe waiting to be explored.
Review
Raghu and I have been working on this story since 2019, publishing an essay in The New Yorker about these telescopes and the border conflict in September 2020. We see the film as an opportunity for the viewer to experience the mystique of the night sky, of a sublime landscape, and of darkness, things that many have never had the chance to do in our light-flooded urban lives. Over the last three years, we have begun to see Changthang in Ladakh as less of a remote border outpost and more of meeting point for different communities, cultures, and concerns, as a place where we might learn from. Can advanced science and traditional cultures co-exist? What do we stand to gain and lose from development? How does Buddhism’s quest for self-knowledge sit with our pursuit for understanding of the world around us? How does the star-filled sky orient us differently in living with other people and creatures? We have been fortunate to find characters who are living these questions and who have now become friends. With this film, we hope to make others acquainted with them.
Director
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Anmol TIKOO
Credit
- Producer라구 카르나드 Raghu KARNAD