The PoojariŽs Daughter opens with flashbacks to South Indian priestess Rajathiammal “cutting the goat” and having her head ritually shorn. The year is 2001, the place, Madurai, Tamilnadu. These two moments fulfil the two most profound wishes of the priestess: to be filmed while performing the annual goat sacrifice to the Saivite god Paandi that was once carried out by her father, and to renounce family life altogether. Using experimental film techniques that recall the work of Trinh Minh Ha, The Poojari's Daughter weaves dramatic footage of these rituals and of temple life at Paandi Kooyil with Rajathiammal's moving account of her process, interviews with close relatives, and brief voiceovers by the filmmaker. Together, these create a vivid and unforgettably intimate portrait of the devotional worlds of this remarkable woman and of South Indian Hinduism.
UntitledRitual
5 Archival description results for Ritual
The Last Rites of the Honourable Mr. Rai is a film about the cremation of a longtime resident of the holy city of Varanasi. This film, made at the request of the Rai family, is possibly the most detailed and respectful study of the Hindu rites of cremation on the sacred banks of the river Ganga.
UntitledVaranasi, the city of Shiva, is also a city of death, known for its devotion and for its crematoria, which is where the Aghori Sadhus live. They cover their bodies with the ashes of the dead and ask for food using a human skull as a vessel.
UntitledVaranasi, India, 6am. 2nd week of the shoot. The heat is already unbearable. Among the alleyways of this sacred city, someone invites me to carry out an interview. I don't understand what he is saying, but I follow him.
UntitledA document about Kumbh Mela, in India. More than 10 million people: pilgrims, saddhus, babbas, .... meet over the course of a month in this psychic vortex, to celebrate the fight between angels and demons. Edited from more than 60 hours of tape filmed in 1986, and edited in 1998 in Mistyc Fire Video.