Following several short films and a documentary feature, Lubdhak Chatterjee returns with this ambitious feature-length fiction. Complemented by a sound design both realist and impressionist, the film follows artist Shiva as he travels to a mining community in India to make recordings for an audio installation. Masterful camerawork shows a vast open-air mine where people live and gather coal amid smoke and flames—the visible signs of an underground blaze active for a century. Firmly rooted in its documentary approach, apparent in the way it observes a region suffering resource depletion, the artist’s sound recording process, and the character of the determined journalist, this film speaks to the social and political reality of its location. Through Shiva’s encounters with the locals, his perceptions are altered. Doubting himself, he turns his interests toward a community living in a nearby forest, thus opening the door to spiritual and ecological questions. (HSB)

Whispers of Fire & Water