In the villages of rural India, along the banks of the Ganges and waterways, a tribe of children is said to be alive who have abandoned adults to create a separate world where past, present and future coincide, in harmony with nature and with the universe. “Ananda” also means well-being given by the awareness of oneself and others. Myth? Reality? Certainly India, even in populous metropolises such as New Delhi, retains a mystical charm and a magical aura that has been lost in the West for many years. Here, where technology multinationals and ascetic gurus isolated from civilization, avant-garde skyscrapers and mud and litter huts coexist, everything seems possible. An ancient legend, handed down so many times that it seems true and told by villagers who report seeing children appear and disappear near waterways or during traditional festivals, is the basis of an adventure that unfolds. in inaccessible and unknown places, far from the chaos of the cities. Thus we discover an imaginative India, built on cultural symbols and archetypes that are lost in the mists of time, ready to fill the eyes of the beholder with magic. An India that knows how to be mysterious and welcoming, with precise rules, rites and customs capable of attracting the traveler on a journey not only dictated by geographical coordinates and characteristics but above all by spiritual stages.
Ananda, in search of the ghost children
Ananda, the movie
In the docufilm directed by Stefano Deffenu and produced by Bonifacio Angius for Il Monello Film, to be released in cinemas on 23 March, the story of a journey to these mysterious, unexplored places, where a varied humanity meets to find someone, something or themselves. In fact, alongside the search for ghost children, in parallel, the protagonist is looking for his twin brother who died many years earlier, with whom he feels he can reunite. The directorial debut of Stefano Deffenu, who also took care of photography, is accompanied by the screenplay written in collaboration with Bonifacio Angius and Pierre Obino and the music of Francesco Simula and Luigi Frassetto.
“Ananda is my personal search – says Stefano Deffenu – towards a peace that I will probably never find. A journey in search of myself, but also of my brother, who in a certain way I find in the faces of children and in their joyful anarchy and which took me from Sardinia to the slopes of the Himalayas. A search that did not end with the return home, but continued for ten long years on a painful journey that found its catharsis in a mixture of smiles and tears, music and images, divinities, sages, ancient masters and ghosts. Ten years which, however, were not enough to make up for a gigantic lack. My perspective was to make a personal film that elevates documentary film above the usual Western tourist travelogue. In the film, Ananda is not the state of sublime delight of Hinduism, but a tribe of eternally joyful children who have decided to live freely. The theme of the film is the return to a lost childhood, which at the same time is always within us, part of our life and also of our soul ”.