Désirée Ickerodt is a German filmmaker living in London. Her creative journey started at the age of four when her mother enrolled her in her first painting class. Most of the children were older, and she was the youngest. She was told to paint a fish. At the time, she was not quite sure what a fish was other than that it was probably some animal. So, she used her imagination, and the result looked more like a sea monster.
Since childhood, Désirée has been sensitive to other people’s energies. Whenever she shared her impressions with the adults, they told her it was just her imagination. This led her to believe that her intuition was not a reliable source of information and that imagination was not necessarily a good thing. So, when she had to choose a career path after finishing school, she chose a more down-to-earth profession as a translator.
After finishing her translation degree, she moved to London. Living in London enabled her to explore her spirituality once more. She explored different healing techniques, such as Reiki, crystal healing and sound healing, and was professionally trained in them. She attended many spiritual talks, seminars, and meditations. Years went by, during which she felt that something was still missing. Finally, she decided to study Fine Art.
During her degree course, she started out by working on sculptures and enjoyed it immensely, but it did not come naturally to her. It was too physical. Her penchant towards the ethereal came back. Her tendency to lean towards the imaginable and intuitive side of life re-emerged. At some point, she purchased a tablet and started playing around with it, allowing creativity to take its unpredictable course. She started filming using her tablet despite its low resolution. It was a playful way of connecting with the medium of film. Her tablet also had a simple video editing app. So, her first film came about all by itself. She had not planned to make a film but could not stop once she started. Filmmaking was addictive in a good way. So, she decided to switch her study focus from sculpture to the more ethereal medium of film.
She finished her degree at the University of East London in 2014 with a BA in Fine Art. In her degree show, she screened a short film inspired by a theosophical writing called The Proem. It describes how everything comes into being and then goes back to sleep. The film Crossing the Horizon (2014) is a visual meditative short film about the beginning and end of the universe. The audio for this film is a recording of an Aeolian harp, a string instrument played by the wind.
Since then, Désirée has worked independently on short films about life, truth, death, and happiness. For this short film series, she interviewed several people from different walks of life, asking them questions, such as, What Matters Most To You?, What Is Life All About? and What Is Happiness? In her award-winning short film What Happens When We Die?, the interviewees are trying to answer the ultimate question. For some people, death is the end, but for some, it is just the beginning of a new journey. Désirée is very interested in the survival of consciousness after the body's demise.
In April 2019, Désirée underwent a past-life regression based on the QHHT method (Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique) developed by Dolores Cannon. These sessions can last about three hours. The session’s audio was recorded and featured in her short film Death, Light and Time. This hypnotic regression method involves connecting with the Higher Self, which knows all the different lives an individual has lived. Before the beginning of the session the therapist asked Désirée if she had any questions for her Higher Self so that they could be asked during the session. Désirée wanted to know how time worked and what time really was. During the session, Desiree was guided to three lifetimes: one as an ant being, one as a member of a secret sect and a third one that was not even an incarnation. Under hypnosis, she describes the moment of death in previous lifetimes, how she experienced a bodiless stage and how her Higher Self understands the concept of time. The film and its background are further discussed in the video Discussing Death, Light and Time on Désirée’s YouTube channel.
Désirée enjoys being involved in all aspects of filmmaking as it is such a metaphor for reality. When we consciously experience moments in our lives and ‘film’ them with awareness, we grow and evolve into more integrated individuals. We are the actors of our lives; we also record and film the scenes of our lives and are, as such, our own camera operators. When we are reminiscing, we usually only remember certain scenes, and as such, we are the editors of our own life stories. Sometimes, we project into the future and plan ahead, so one could argue that we are also storyboarding and scriptwriting our lives. Of course, we are also the directors and producers of our lives. We have, in fact, a complete film crew within ourselves.
When Désirée first learned to edit films, she found it very cathartic. It can be a very intense process if you go into the minuteness of it. Sometimes, it feels like entering the quantum structure of reality. The editing process does something to the editor. For Désirée, it made her more aware of how she edited her own life. Which scenes do not make it into the film? Which events are not stored in our memory? The so-called Deleted Scenes often end up in our subconscious. But they are still there. They never fully go away.
Désirée has been travelling to the Scottish islands for the last few years. In her atmospheric short films, she captured the energy of the rugged landscape of the remote locations she visited. In November 2023, she produced a few short films on Shetland. Since returning to London, she has been focusing on rediscovering the beauty in urban London in her short videos filmed at dusk and dawn over the river Thames. She maintains a positive outlook through a curious spirit of discovery that leads her to see beauty in ordinary life.
J. Udayabhaskara Sastry, 69, is a documentary and short-film maker, accredited independent journalist, Vedic astrology researcher and associate member of the Telugu Cine Writers’ Association based at Hyderabad, Telangana State, India.
His latest project, documentary on Arunachalam Hill, titled Antipode of Arunachalam Hill, deals with the unexplored part of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi who most of the Indians consider as an incarnation of Lord Shiva.
Sastry’s first documentary film, made in vernacular language Telugu, deals with Sri Ramanujacharya, Indian spiritual Guru and philosopher of the 11th and 12th centuries, who tried hard to drive away the stigma of untouchability from the then Indian society.
Born in a traditional agricultural family at Itikampadu village in the Guntur district of undivided Andhra Pradesh, Sastry cultivated the habit of exploring things of the spiritual world and of the most fascinating subject of Vedic Astrology, while continuing his career as a journalist.
Sastry’s other varied interests include exploring spiritual personalities of the globe and their teachings, script writing for documentaries in English and Telugu, besides providing scripts for short and feature films and creating consciousness among people about the oceanic Indian astrology.
Known as J U B Sastry in journalistic circles, he worked as sub-editor for various vernacular dailies including those belonging to the widely known Indian Express Group.
He also worked as content developer for more than two decades for English news portals besides taking up the most coveted job of Media Coordinator in the national media section in the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s Office between October 2022 and May 2024.
With India’s most venerable spiritual teacher Sri Ramana Maharshi being a household name across the length and breadth of the country since 1950s, Sastry used to think of the spiritual Guru akin to his family elders who had high regards for the master.
During his days as columnist to the Chennai-based astrology magazine The Express Star Teller, Sastry was fascinated to read articles about Ramana Maharshi contributed by his co-columnists off and on. His urge to probe the teachings of the spiritual Guru grew wider and he left no stone unturned in unearthing the hidden.
A few months ago, while browsing for information about Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, the journalist-turned documentary film maker fumbled on the scantly-appreciated point, as elucidated by the Maharshi, of the existence of a possible antipode for the Arunachalam Hill.
Before Ramana Maharshi, no other spiritual teacher of the world ever thought of the spiritual angle that has been binding the mankind together in one form or the other since time immemorial.
Ramana Maharshi has several disciples across the world. Major AW Chadwick, the first European disciple of the internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher, spent the rest of his life as Sadhu Arunachala at the Ramana Maharshi Asram at Arunachalam, after retiring as a Major from the British Army.
During his spiritual interactions with Major Chadwick and others, the Maharshi spoke of the antipode of the Arunachalam Hill on the other side of the Earth.
The Guru was of firm opinion that both the hills, the Arunachalam Hill in India and its antipode in the West, are holding the world together spiritually like the North and South Pole holding the globe together physically.
This had prompted the documentary maker to probe the issue further and he got what he wanted. Sadhu Arunachala’s Book A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi, talked of the subject in detail.
In his book, Sadhu Arunachala describes the greatness of the hill saying that it gives inspiration for all seeking spiritual strength. He talks of the Giri Pradakshinams (circumambulations around the sacred hill) extending to a distance of nearly 14 km from which the devotees draw the strength.
He also further says Ramana Maharshi used to stress on the fact that Lord Shiva pervades the Arunachalam Hill as Arunagiri Yogi and its antipode exists in the hill ranges, at a place somewhere near to its equivalent geographical coordinates, in the West.
Before reading Sadhu Arunachala’s book, I visited Arunachalam in Tamil Nadu and went round the hill in a moving vehicle, like many others who are perhaps ignorant of the strength of the barefoot walking.
Sincerely speaking, I failed to experience any spiritual flavor mentioned by Sadhu Arunachala. However, after reading the book, I visited the temple town once again along with my journalist-friend P. Pawan Kunar.
After having Darshan of the temple deity, we trekked up the hill under the guidance of the guide Mountain Mani in the morning hours and went round the hill on the same evening barefoot thinking of Lord Shiva, Arunachalam Hill and its antipode. There were no symptoms of fatigue on either of us.
Rather, the experience was amazing and I was thrilled to feel the spiritual vibrations through my body and soul. My friend also had similar experience. The feeling was something that I couldn’t explain here in words. One has to experience it to feel it.
That was the moment I made up my mind on making the documentary on the subject. But I knew very well that I couldn’t do it in a single day. I waited for the right time and acted on it when I got the opportunity.
Antipode of Arunachalam Hill, with a bearable length of 15 minute plus, talks about the spiritual strength of the pilgrim town Arunachalam, Arunachalam Hill and its antipode Machu Picchu Hill in Peru in the West.
I strongly feel that the spiritual strength of any person on this Earth lies in his / her emotional thinking and films like Antipode of Arunachalam Hill only serve the purpose of educating about the existence of the sources that consolidate such emotions.
As Ramana Maharshi says, it is true that thoughts come and go and feelings too come and go but we have to find out what it is that remains with us. Is there any doubt that it is only the spiritual strength that we draw in our lives that remains with us even if our physical bodies perish at the will of destiny?
Yolanda Barker is an Irish-Polish film director, author and mental health advocate. She’s directed award-winning documentaries like ‘Cereal Killers’.
Born in Limerick city to an Irish father and Polish mother, her film making aspirations began at the age of eight, when she saw ‘The Little Mermaid’, and promptly decided she wanted to make films for Walt Disney.
In her teens, through a deepening understanding of her own mental health struggles, she became drawn to films that captured both the magic and the horror of life, like Roberto Benigni’s ‘Life is Beautiful’.
After moving to Dublin, she studied English Literature at University, and followed this with a one year filmmaking course. Here, she was introduced to the beauty of documentary filmmaking. Inspired by the work of documentary masters like Leo Regan and Nick Broomfield, she saw in documentary the potential to investigate and understand human nature.
After graduating, she immediately got a job as an editor, working for clients like Guinness and Jameson. In her spare time, she directed and edited her first feature documentary, ‘Drawing the Line’, about Irish graffiti artists.
In 2005, a (very unexpected) spiritual awakening changed the course of her life. She began exploring energy healing, yoga and meditation, but it was hard to get the information she wanted. Spiritual practices were very ”alternative” in Ireland at that time, and the internet was not that developed. She continued to work as an editor in Dublin, transitioning to TV and eventually working for R.T.E (the Irish equivalent of the BBC).
After a few years, she burnt out from full time work. She decided to go freelance, travel to India, immerse herself in spirituality, and make a documentary about what she found. She had no idea what she was letting herself in for, or how difficult it would be to make a nuanced film on such a complex topic. 12 years later, the result was ‘India, Calling’: a dark, yet beautiful film about spirituality, healing, and the human condition.
Agonising over ‘India, Calling’ didn’t stop Yolanda from working on other projects. In 2009 she moved to London, UK, and from 2011 to 2020 she directed five more documentaries. Produced by Donal O’Neil, these films focused on different aspects of nutritional science, the food industry, big pharma, and were more activist in nature. Titles included ‘Cereal Killers’, ‘Cereal Killers 2’, ‘The Big Fat Fix’, and ‘Extra Time’.
She also directed several short films and short animations. Her most successful of these was ‘After I Saw You’, made with Leah Pearlman, the artist behind the Buddhist comic strip, Dharma Comics. This two minute animation went viral upon release, featuring in dozens of online publications. It made it to film festivals all over the world, including the Oscar-qualifying Encounters Film Festival, and won the ‘Producer’s Choice’ award at the Earl’s Court Film Festival.
Alongside all this, Yolanda continued practising yoga and meditation. In 2011 she qualified as a yoga teacher, and began teaching. Her experiences with yoga, meditation and breathwork became the substance for her first health and wellness book, ‘The Breathing Revolution’. Here, she looked at the connection between breathing, the nervous system and mental health.
This was her most personal work to date, as she shared openly about her struggles with anxiety and depression. Since then she has become a mental health advocate, giving talks about mental health and the benefits of breathing techniques both at online and in-person events. She is particularly interested in breaking stigmas around mental health conditions and has written about this in publications like Elephant Journal.
Watch 'India, Calling' here: https://yolandabarker.vhx.tv/
The integrative approach found in Vocal Tai Chi (the other project I am presenting as part of the Spiritual Arts Foundation) was taken further in 2015. I was itching to put this unusual voicework (Vocal Tai Chi) in public concert form. One day I clocked that ‘conduction’ might be the way to do that: Sun Ra, Frank Zappa, John Zorn, Phil Minton and Peter Wiegold and The Improvisers’ Orchestra are examples of others who have used conduction. I called auditions for creative professional singers and formed a conduction choir.
I auditioned twenty-five singers and selected ten of them. December 2015 marked the first performance with The Improvisers’ Choir (TIC) at the Vortex Jazz Club. There was a sense of euphoric breakthrough afterwards, as none of us had done a performance like it before and the energy was unmistakable. The singers were from multiple genres and I conducted the improvisations with agreed hand signals, shaping the music as it unfolded. Since then, in some of the concerts, special guests (Ian Shaw, Cleveland Watkiss) have been invited to collaborate, devising music with the choir around the guest’s music and allowing them to find ways into the choirs.
As conductor, I integrate the guest, hold the overall space, shape ‘symphonic’ long-lines (over the course of an evening) and aim to realise the ‘implicit journey’ of the whole, across each piece and the complete concert. In 2018 TIC recorded an album which became the soundtrack to a film by Sara Pozin whose brief was to articulate, in moving images, the essence of the musical worlds of each piece. ‘Land Mass,’ – a music-film – ‘a spontaneous vocal-visual liturgy for the land’ is the result.
The only professional review, so far, for The Improvisers’ Choir, in March 2019, called TIC’s music ‘a societal allegory.’ This speaks of a performance practice that points beyond music, to its social implications.
The allegorical quality in The Improvisers’ Choir, has several facets, which I will explore below. The choir are delivering publicly in an unusual social/musical set up, to bring about new music. They look unlike a conventional choir who have their eyes in their scores, or an ensemble of instrumentalists, sitting behind music stands. The singers stand in a semi-circle, without scores, looking directly at the conductor, the audience, and each other. It is a transparent situation, especially as the music is yet to be plucked from thin air.
Here is the full review comment: ‘Jenni Roditi’s vocal improvisation choir was poignantly reaffirming of the power of the individual voice, and the difference it can make as part of a collective, not least in the creative practice of collaborative music-making, but as a societal allegory.
What is the ‘social allegory’ of the conductor in this context? The conductor is the convener of the practice and takes on leadership responsibility. Holding the space and using an ear that draws on compositional as well as performance sensibility without the dogma of a full score – the conductor is also reliant on the choir to spark the music into life. There is a high level of trust needed between all.
The conductor’s role delineates a fine membrane between the singers and herself. This is a defining edge, but also a porous and flowing one, with influences moving to and frow across the membrane. As in an earlier reference to Vocal Tai Chi, where yin and yang are ‘opposite but interconnected forces’, this allegory symbolizes leadership as a publicly observed exchange of agreed creative cooperation. The membrane sits at the point of equal, opposite and interconnected force. The conductor is one force, and the singers are the other. Yet, there is a third force that interconnects both - the whole group together, and event itself. This includes the audience, the room, the theme and context of the event and so on.
The Improvisers’ Choir project works on the basis that a leadership role is necessary for a musical overview and, if done well, adds inspiration and support to the singers. Working in an improvising vocal group without a leader, suggests a different stance, and a different allegory - one of consensus as opposed to leadership. That has a different social narrative. With conduction, it is accepted that a responsive, receptive leader who, at the same time makes creative interventions, can helpfully move things on, shake things up, start, stop, and sensitively orchestrate the space, as overseer-overhearer.
Conduction helps make the most of the potential in each choir member, encouraging individual journeys through each piece. Conduction also works with past and future time- space in the music. As a conductor it is possible to recall something musically that happened five minutes ago, and signal a return to that, just when the latest episode is running dry, and the piece might die without some recapitulation. Oppositely, a conductor can keep things moving with a change of tempo, meter, mood, pitch area, fresh groupings etc.
In group vocal improvisations without a conductor, I’ve heard instances where the piece comes to an end because there is no overview of its compositional line. The music could not lift off more fully because it was dependent on moving forward, episode by episode. Cross cutting, dramatic shifts, and changes in tempo, meter, tessitura and grouping were not so easy, as no one was steering (or willing to steer from within) the space, to help the music sit in a broader space and timeline.
Of course, this is not to say leaderless group improvisation doesn’t implicitly have shared or individual leadership from one or several group members, it does, but it has a different creative stance. It leans towards no one being, so-called, ‘on the outside.’ Such separation may seem hierarchically unhelpful, but I believe it to be musically useful and like the breathing diaphragm, a membrane, that is both an integrated, and a separate, form and useful force.
As well as social cohesion and allegories within the music, being part of an improvising choir is to be part of a social community. The Improvisers’ Choir has been a creative opportunity for each person to bring their vocal ideas to the group. Feedback from all the singers, suggests that they felt a sense of homecoming, as the music-making gave them a chance to offer their own original contributions.
This article consists of some short and adapted extracts of text from the chapter “Beyond Music Workshops – A Composer and A Community” written by Jenni Roditi, to appear in the “Routledge Companion to Women’s Musical Leadership – The Nineteenth Century And Beyond” – forthcoming, November 2023.
To find out more about Land Mass, the trailer, audience feedback, and the link to the complete film, please visit the link below.
Thida Nathalie is a die-hard nomadic self-taught filmmaker who is so infatuated with human stories that she has been consistently diving into them ever since teaching herself how to use a mirrorless DSLR camera and sound recorder back in 2015. Having ingratiated herself in more than twenty countries, she has developed a huge curiosity for the characters, places, norms and cultures that she has befriended along the way. A travelholic, fascinated with the weaving narratives of documentary-style filmmaking, she often subtly delves into metaphysical and spiritual subtexts via her human and cultural stories that stir the heart and intrigue the soul. Her ten completed documentaries all reflect this obsession, which was ignited by a dramatic spiritual event she experienced more than a decade ago.
“In mid-2012, I had my first out-of-body experience. My consciousness was flung out into the top right-hand corner of the room where I was working. As my fingers continued to type on the computer keyboard, I became aware that the body and consciousness are two entirely different things. I then heard muffled sounds, and it took some time before I could navigate back to hear those sounds become the legible voice of my father asking if I wanted some grilled fish!”
“During the following two years, my experiences increased, and my awareness expanded. I felt I had a clear path to manifest anything I desired, and I began travelling in vigour. A friend encouraged me to carry a little Panasonic Lumix camera and hit the record button wherever I went, as he thought that the places I was visiting looked intriguing. I also discovered I was attracting some of the most interesting, light, dark and other-worldly beings, and I wanted to tell their story.” This marked the start of Thida’s journey into the world of filmmaking.
In June 2015, Thida visited Ladakh, ‘The Land of High Passes', in a last-minute spontaneous invitation by a fellow traveller to the ancient kingdom. The day she arrived she went to 'Ladakh Cafe', the closest cafe in the bazaar that had Wi-Fi (a temperamental technology in the 11,480 feet mountainous region of this seasonally busy Himalayan town.) Next door sat Mr Tashi, running his Tibetan prayer beads through his fingers, long hair tied back and a turquoise stone dangling off a piece of red, waxy cotton threaded through his earlobe. Entranced by his ‘Tibetan-ness’, a culture she was witnessing for the first time, Thida went to the market to get some lunch mantra-ing, ‘I’m going to make a film on that man, I’m going to make a film on that man’. True to her word, her first documentary Mr Tashi was completed that year.
“A vegan cafe, my first ever review in the Lonely Planet, a couple of avalanches and a hundred stories to tell the kids (if I ever have any) later, the first ever film that I could only dream about making is alive - just how I saw it the very day I laid eyes on Mr Tashi.”
Whilst couch surfing in New Mexico, a guy called ‘Jeff’ who lived on a farm in Taos stood out to Thida. Jeff’s miniature farm and positive reviews began ‘itching' her intrigue, and suddenly she felt like making a film about it, although she had no idea why. An accepted CS request, a broken down Greyhound bus and a hitchhike up the Cerro del Oso mountains later, she found herself admiring the sunset from Talpa Gardens, where she met and filmed her second documentary with Jeff, the farmer, painter and car renovator, whose intelligence, light-heartedness and wisdom went hand-in-hand with his ability to manifest the lifestyle he desired - far from laissez faire, yet cleverly appearing to be just so.
“In life we tend to stumble upon just what we need when we need it. In un-mindfulness we brush it into the categories of ‘chance’ or ‘fate’ without realising how the Universe is in constant service towards our personal evolution. Meeting and listening to Jeff has been an incredible confirmation that our own self-empowerment really knows where to take us. His views of freedom, and what that means to him, his interpretation of the way the world works, his diligent practices towards a subtle and far greater goal that he innately and instinctively follows, are just some of the empowering insights Jeff offered me, both vocally and non-tangibly at times. During the interview, I also discovered that Jeff is an artist that has sold over one point three million dollars’ worth of paintings!” Her documentary became entitled The Man Who Paints Monkeys.
During a last-minute trip to Sardinia in 2017 someone on a Facebook forum suggested Luigi Muscas to become Thida’s local guide to explore the archaeological Nuraghe sites scattered across the Mediterranean Island of Sardinia. Luigi, then considered an 'outcast' or 'madman' by the village where he grew up, had made regular giant skeletal discoveries as a child, and he continued to receive visitors from around the world. Contrary to public belief, Luigi told a very different tale about an ancient civilisation of giants.
“If giant remains are truly being discovered around the world, what do these remains relate to and why are they here on Earth? If legends are true and 'hybrid offspring' are walking around the planet, where did they come from and more importantly, why did they intermingle with local Earth inhabitants when they came? Was it just our beautiful looks as legends say...or was there something more?” This became Thida’s third documentary Walking With Giants.
During the filming of Driving Miss Rebecca, Thida’s love for character driven travelogues only intensified, and in a period lasting over eight months from mid-2017 to early 2018 she found herself following in the footsteps of Dr Rebecca C Rivera as she took Thida on a journey of her life, beginning at her home in New Jersey, USA, and continuing on a spontaneous trip through France, Spain and Italy to finish in Luzon, Philippines. Thida’s narrative eye continued to wonder with her film ‘To Be’, which explored ‘The 'Gallegos', an autonomous community with a distinct cultural heritage, climate and geography, filmed in the summer of 2018 in Galicia.
That year also marked a return to her spiritual roots when Thida interviewed the artist and spiritual ‘grid-keeper’ Yunah Ray, prior to her death from cancer, in her documentary Petals of Steel.
“We open with a story linked to Yunah's childhood memories whilst growing up, before moving into subjects surrounding her country of origin, current lifestyle, the meanings behind her artworks and her ongoing struggles. Yunah died a month after she gave this interview from her cancer. It was important for her to speak her truth in a variety of ways, and for me, the editor, to highlight her incredible strength and beauty. This film above all else, is a tribute.”
Thida’s relationship with India began when she embarked on a journey into one of the least accessible parts of Nagaland to make 'Tribe', a human story which focused on Penjun, one of the few remaining tribe members of the fiercest headhunters of Nagaland known as 'The Konyak'. Encouraged to follow God in his latter years, with only an opium pipe and a few trigger-happy tourists to keep him busy, Penjun faithfully walks his grandchildren to school whilst reminiscing on the good old days. The film was requested to be screened at the grassroots community festival Ubuntu in London during March 2019, if not for Covid.
Thida’s regular visits to Myanmar for her first feature documentary panning a period of 5 years and still in assembly, birthed a new creative vision in her mind: a spiritual science fiction series she entitled The InfinEights. Whilst filming the documentary The Empire Of Good Deeds, she met a young boy of five, who proved to be a natural actor, and this inspired her write her first ever script, on the spot, in a place when censorship in is at an all-time high, and the act of simply carrying a camera is enough reason to get arrested.
Undeterred, she filmed the first InfinEights episode with ‘Kaung Myat Htun’ (gong mee-at tuun), who plays the role of a starseed/indigo child/superhero living in stealth. Appearing as a traditionally obedient Burmese boy coming from a family of tailors, he goes about his day, sharing the content of his electric mind and exploring ancient golden pagodas of which Myanmar is famous for, whilst gradually revealing that he is no ordinary human child. Entitled Bright like the Sun, Thida’s short film went on to win 15 international film festivals and been screened in France, USA, Brazil, Canada, and the UK thus far.
“The storytelling itself is magical. A kind of magic which is beyond trickery or deception. A magic that is alluring and fills one with a feeling of glee. The feeling is enchanting. We are hypnotically transferred to the world away from the cacophony of the one we inhabit…The director does an impeccable job of creating a world of stunning and captivating visuals. The entire story is told in an adroit fashion with so much left to be meditated upon and contemplate about life by the end of it….” - Beyond The Curve International Film.
“I would like each of the InfinEights films to give back to the local communities where they were filmed, through fundraising screenings and ticket donations. I feel that films often take more from their local environment than they put back. I have also scripted my films to provide acting showcase opportunities to those children who are on the spectrum or may have difficulty fitting in with the world around them.” It may come as no surprise that Thida also aims to support orphaned children in the undeveloped and complex country of Myanmar by donating a percentage of the film’s profits to a local children’s charity.
Thida’s second film in The InfinEights series is entitled Auria Rides Time, which she has now finished shooting in the UK and is currently crowdfunding for post-production.
