Spirit of the Forest

Animated Short | Kannada with English Subtitles | India | Nirupa Rao

Walking home from school, a little girl stumbles into a sacred grove near her village in south India. Here, she disturbs the grove’s resident spirit, who takes her on an adventure illuminating the evolution of this ancient swamp. It is inspired by indigenous practices of protecting relict forests through folklore grounded in ecological principle.

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About the Filmmaker

Nirupa Rao is a Bangalore-based botanical artist whose work is inspired by field visits and close collaboration with natural scientists. She has illustrated two books on native flora of south India’s rainforests. She was the 2022 artist-in-residence at Harvard University's Dumbarton Oaks Research Centre; the youngest artist included in Kew Botanical Garden’s Indian Botanical Art; and has been featured in the BBC documentary Nature and Us—A History Through Art. In 2020, she was awarded the National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship to create the film Spirit of the Forest.