Since more than a decade or so, Czech musician Vladimír Pavelka has been visiting India, especially the esoteric spiritual ghats of Varanasi, Prayag, and tantra-magnetic fields of the Tarapith shrine in West Bengal in search of ancient knowledge of occult arts of the Aghoris. And now before the Maha Kumbh (India’s mega spiritual gathering of ascetics), he finds himself confronted with epiphanies of creating the most valuable music of his life.

We are currently in the development stage of the project, and are in the process of applying at places like IFFR HBR, IDFA Bertha Forum, DOCLab Kolkata, NFDC Film Bazaar Goa and other pitching forums. The project’s esotericism and the need of deeper introspection into the religionism and symbolic representation of an ancient city in India through the eyes of an Eastern European musician provides a fresh dimension of values that would be both immersive and fascinating for a global audience. Currently we are facing a dearth of investment and financial support for the film as it veers off the beaten path of overt commercialism in filmmaking of the esoteric kind. Hemant and Roy have been involved in screenings and film projects earlier in their careers and hence join forces to make this cinematic journey possible for the world to witness a unique story.

This film is about Vlad’s personal life story, his artistic works, and how he divides his time between the Czech Republic and nursing his ailing grandmother of 90 years in Slovakia, behind-the-mask human interactions, childhood memories and a hint of necrophilia. The film will be a fresh take on subculture, travel, spirituality, artistic explorations, and a curious look into what makes us human – who might be viewing the moment as if, in the present, and as well reflects on culture-thinking through the centuries of the past and the possible ‘butterfly effect’ on future civilizations.

What started with my earlier films like Nafir and Extreme Nation where I had explored the human condition following the music, culture and ideologies behind them in a geo-political context, Sound System Sanskriti furthered my exploration as a deeper human-sound-technology-spirituality quantum. It follows an ethnographic curve of past-era immigration and identity in view of a changing national sentiment in India to the world.

Hence, with the above experience and my graph of learning human-culture spaces, I wanted to explore occult practises of death rituals, followed not just by cult ascetics but also beyond and the pain of division/ partition of a country. Vladimir’s story resounded with me. I have witnessed and met his band Cult of Fire up-front and close at their premiere appearance in India in 2018 and I have an extensive coverage to their performance at the recently concluded From the Archives series.