Holy (un)Holy River
Follow two filmmakers down India’s most sacred river—the Ganges, termed “Ma Ganga,” or “Mother Ganges” by many Hindus. Seen as a source of life, the river is a sacred body that flows 1,569 miles through the subcontinent. But it’s purity is threatened by increasing industrial emissions, damming, household trash, human remains, and sewage, all of which are exacerbated by unhindered population growth. “But if we worship it, how can we defile it?,” one woman in the film asks, calling attention to the contradiction of the world’s most holy river being threatened by the byproducts of a rapidly industrializing world. Holy (un)Holy River prompts the viewer question to question: how can a so-called ‘source of life’ put the lives of anyone bathing or drinking it at risk? Where can restoring the life of the Ganges begin?