Israel

25'18'', 2020

DIRECTED BY

Nadav Harel

PRODUCED BY

Nadav Harel

SCRIPTWRITER

Arik Moran

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Nadav Harel

EDITED BY

Nadav Harel

CONTACT

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Set in the cultural frontier zone of the Hindu Himalaya, AVATARA (from Sanskrit, "descent") explores the lived religion of goddess worship (shaktism) in a remote pastoral valley. For her farmer and herder followers, the goddess's presence is all too real; quick to anger and ever-thirsty for, she haunts them in their dreams and rituals, demanding complete submission as both childlike friend and motherly punisher. In this enchanted world of magical creativity, the encounters with the goddess are transient, intuitive events that hold the key to creation and, for those lucky enough to see her, a short-lived salvation.

Nadav Harel is documentary filmmaker, based in Tel Aviv, where he founded the production house Noprocess films. His films specialize in wildlife, philosophy, medicine, hunting and Hinduism. Nadav’s work was screened world wide in different venues.

Arik Moran is a historian and ethnographer of the Indian Himalaya. He completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2010 and joined the Department of Asian Studies a year later, where he teaches and researches the oral and written histories and ritual cultures of Himalayan societies.