The Goddess of Potong Pasir (2022)
Direction/Edit - Chan Sze-Wei
Featuring - Sadhna Rai, Sanaya Rai
Choreography - Raka Maitra
Dancer - Caroline Chin
Camera (Studio) - Grace Baey
Camera (Documentary) Chan Sze-Wei
Music - Senyawa
Commission by the Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival 2022
Supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore
This film is an intimate portrait of a mother’s love for her young daughter, as she teaches her about women’s strength and independence via the manifestations of the goddess Durga-Kali. Their rituals are a celebration of beauty, strength, life and the impermanence of it all. We see a unique diasporic expression of faith, across different traditions from North, South and East India.
Official Selection, Festival Signes de Nuit (Paris) 2023
Official Selection, Greensboro Dance Festival (USA), 2024
Direction/Edit - Chan Sze-Wei
Featuring - Sadhna Rai, Sanaya Rai
Choreography - Raka Maitra
Dancer - Caroline Chin
Camera (Studio) - Grace Baey
Camera (Documentary) Chan Sze-Wei
Music - Senyawa
Commission by the Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival 2022
Supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore
This film is an intimate portrait of a mother’s love for her young daughter, as she teaches her about women’s strength and independence via the manifestations of the goddess Durga-Kali. Their rituals are a celebration of beauty, strength, life and the impermanence of it all. We see a unique diasporic expression of faith, across different traditions from North, South and East India.
Official Selection, Festival Signes de Nuit (Paris) 2023
Official Selection, Greensboro Dance Festival (USA), 2024
Jury Award, Festival Zeichen der Nacht (Berlin) 2023
Jury Statement:
"This autobiographical documentary film, commissioned by the Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival, connects the personal devotion of a mother to her daughter with a traditional choreography of religious devotion to the popular Goddess Durga, during the Singapore Navaratri Festival, in a particularly moving and surprising way. Rarely does a film show the mutual relationship of human love emotion and contemporary religious dance interpretation in such an expressive and convincing manner."
Jury Statement:
"This autobiographical documentary film, commissioned by the Borobudur Writers and Cultural Festival, connects the personal devotion of a mother to her daughter with a traditional choreography of religious devotion to the popular Goddess Durga, during the Singapore Navaratri Festival, in a particularly moving and surprising way. Rarely does a film show the mutual relationship of human love emotion and contemporary religious dance interpretation in such an expressive and convincing manner."
