An ascetic walks through the narrow streets of a village every morning while his family is still asleep. In his semi-somnolent state he dreams about the history of the village mixing up myths, folklore and facts.

Suggestions of ancient and modern myths and folklore coalesce in dreams to bring alive a colourful animated world.

An old palace, now a museum, stands alone above the riverbank overlooking the city. It houses a set of the finest miniature paintings ever created in the Himalayan region. Hundreds of people come here to admire the art every day. When evening comes, the curtains are drawn, doors are locked and gates are bolted. In the calm of the night, characters from the pictures spring to life. They tell of the eternal love between King Nala and his wife Damayantin. Once while gambling, the king lost his kingdom and they were forced to live in exile. Separating soon after, they experience numerous adventures and eventually reunite at the end.
Amit Dutta approaches this story with visual composure and concentration. He lifts the curtains with the greatest respect, to give life to love. He searches for the cinematic equivalent of this tale and expands the cinema, with the miniature.

Mother, Who Will Weave Now? attempts to sample and mirror the grand tapestry of Indian textile tradition and history by interweaving snippets of Indian cloth on an editing table, using the poetic meters of classical Indian literature sewn together with the words and motifs of the weaver-saint Kabir.

According to Dutt, the film “attempts to gather these impressions and bind them into little booklets of poetry, sewn together with words and spaces that were responses to the images presented, sometimes culled from memory, sometimes simple observation, or a moment’s pause to wonder.

Jangarh Singh Shyam, a famous Indian artist born in an isolated tribal village, committed suicide in a Japanese museum in 2001. I found on an old MiniDV tape the images of a trip I had undertaken in 2008, when I had gone looking for him in his native region.

The project attempts to push the boundaries of cinema by juxtaposing it with ideas from philosophy, visual art, chess, mathematics, geometry, linguistics and psychology.

Nainsukh (born 1710, died 1768) was the greatest eighteenth-century Indian miniaturist, the son of the respected Pandit Seu and brother of the steadfast Manaku. He deviated from his family workshop style by following his interest for Mughal naturalism. At the age of thirty, Nainsukh was invited by Raja Zorawar Singh to his castle in Jasrota. Nainsukh served him until Singh’s untimely death, but was retained as court artist by his young son Raja Balwant Singh. These two dandy-like, non-ruling Rajput princes were connoisseurs who enjoyed spending their limited fortunes on entertaining colourful guests and they shared a refined taste in music, dance and theatrical performances. Nainsukh participated in their artistic amusements… —

The project attempts to push the boundaries of cinema by juxtaposing it with ideas from philosophy, visual art, chess, mathematics, geometry, linguistics and psychology.

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.