Projects - The Mighty Muse

the truth is almost always stranger than fiction!

The truth is almost always stranger than fiction & we love to curate just that
– true stories that inspire, entertain and amaze

Our current slate focuses on hyper local, India cool stories of the moment
that global audiences can vibe with

Browse loglines here and get in touch if you see anything you like!

Sundargarh

Little Poland

Kunchok

Gil

Heart On A Pedal

The Paw Squad

Casting Criminal

A Life In Shadows

Leap Of Faith

Kranti Girls

Headshot

Chaau

The Flying Village

Daku Man Singh

Trial By Fire

The Garud Strikes

Bodypoppin

Mafia Queens

Gangs Of Gurugram

Nanak Singh

Poker Face

Sundargarh

Little Poland

Kunchok

Gil

Heart On A Pedal

The Paw Squad

Casting Criminal

A Life In Shadows

Leap Of Faith

Kranti Girls

Headshot

Chaau

The Flying Village

Daku Man Singh

Trial By Fire

The Garud Strikes

Bodypoppin

Mafia Queens

Gangs Of Gurugram

Nanak Singh

Poker Face

Sundargarh

Little Poland

Gangs Of Gurugram

Love Beyond Borders

Underdog

The Paw Squad

A Life In Shadow

Leap Of Faith

Headshot

Chaau

Daku Man Singh

Trial By Fire

Bodypoppin

Mafia Queens

Poker Face

Imagine a tribal Indian wedding under a sweltering summer sky filled with the unmistakable energy and color of indigenous fanfare and tradition. But wait. This wedding cannot be solemnised until the groom’s side has played a fierce match of hockey with the bride’s side!

Welcome to Sundargarh – the sublime, wild and odd soul of Indian hockey which has so far produced 16 Olympians and 65 national-level players including the legend Dilip Tirkey, who has been India’s longest serving national hockey captain and now the president of Hockey India.

The history of this hockey culture dates back to the mid-1800s when Christian missionaries tried to unite tribal communities by introducing them to a sport. Over centuries, hockey’s role in Sundargarh, the second largest district in the state of Odisha, transmuted against the backdrop of mining for its mineral rich reserves and human trafficking, and an unchanging socio-political backdrop that is always on the boil.

We celebrate the transformative powers of sport—especially for young girls who have traditionally been bereft of choices beyond working as domestic help or bonded labourers in faraway urban pockets. Everyone is involved and more than 20,000 players compete at Sundargarh’s own hockey leagues where the top prize is either a goat or a chicken and a local team may have a 60-year-old man as a defender and a teenager as its midfielder or attacker! Hockey is everywhere – from doweries to teenage girls cycling to school at dawn with prized hockey sticks to the mindboggling contrasts of bumpy rides through thick forests only to arrive at a swank astro-turf surrounded by hills on one side and wild elephant habitats on the other.

Here, hockey is a passion, profession, leisure, lifestyle, religion, a catalyst for children to rise above their circumstances, and above all – the solution to all of life’s problems.

We intend to document this exhilarating, heartfelt and as yet untold story and have secured extensive access and permissions from local and state level government authorities, the sports federation, the Olympic champions from the region, in-depth archives and of course scores of current families who dream of and nuture thousands of hockey champions in the making.

Team

Sammit Das

Sanjukta Sharma

WYSIWYG Films

This film follows the quirky, wonderful and audacious lives of India’s first female lifeguards, along with their unique companions – the paw squad – stray dogs who are trained as fellow lifeguards and a ground breaking self-driving robot named Aurus.

Set in Goa, our film intimately observes the personal lives, motivations, aspirations and challenges of Ananya Bath and Charmaine D’Souza as they break stereotypes, pursue their dreams calling and carry out their crucial duties of ensuring beach safety.

We also get acquainted with a newly emerging, changing India, as our protagonists encounter a diverse array of tourists and locals who flock to the beach – each with their own stories and experiences.

Adding to the uniqueness of this story is the presence of the “paw squad” – a team of eleven highly trained stray dogs serving as lifeguards. These canine heroes are trained to locate victims in distress, perform search and rescue operations in rocky areas, and find missing children on the beach. Their dedication and loyalty prove invaluable to the team’s rescue efforts, adding a heart-warming aspect to the film.

Through daily routines, heroic rescues and a shared dedication to protect beachgoers, the film also sheds light on the devastating impact of human activities on the ocean while emphasising the urgent need for conservation efforts to safeguard marine life. We capture the profound bond between the lifeguards and the ocean, revealing their deep connection with nature and the ravages they witness first hand. The story highlights the many environmental challenges facing Goa today – pollution, mangrove deterioration and the decline of migratory birds.

As the film unfolds, it also explores the broader impact of the lifeguards work on the community. The Special Rescue Training Academy (SRTA) initiates a recruitment drive, attracting lower middle class youth who see the job as a stable source of income.Additionally, the lifeguards take on the responsibility of training members of migrant labour communities under the “Apda Mitra” scheme, equipping them to face natural calamitiessuch as flash floods, cyclones and landslides.

In the end, this film touches upon a many pressing issues relevant to our present moment.From female empowerment to meaningful social change and environmental devastation –the many strands of this true story are both powerful and thought provoking. Our protagonists help us tell this important story with humour, joyfulness, positivity and hope.

TEAM

Neel Mani Kant

Our story is set against the backdrop of one of the most dangerous recreational activities in the world – BASE jumping

Our protagonist is 30 year old commercial pilot Udit Thapar – an adrenalin seeker and prodigal son of aviation pioneer and legend retd. Col Thapar. Arguably the country’s best civilian practicing Base Jumper today, he is now setting out to become the country’s first proximity flyer – a form of BASE jumping which is so extreme that it has the highest death rate than any other sport.

This film is a multi layered exploration. On one hand there is the sport itself – and a very small number of its practitioners worldwide who make up this elite tribe less by geography and more by mindset. On the other hand there is Udit’s personal struggle to find an identity and acceptance in pursuit of his adventurous lifestyle amidst the construct of a conservative and risk averse Indian society. Added to this, with no access to practice or train for it on home turf due to lack of both personnel or infra to help equip him mentally or physically, ironically makes this country of a billion+ people an isolating place for him. As he navigates life in the wake of a messy divorce and faces the reality of leaving his day job to achieve the pinnacle of human flight, the stakes – physical, mental, familial & societal are sky high.

This quest has him seeking out more of his tribe and has him set out on travels to countries like Norway, Italy, Sweden, Greece and Switzerland where the sport is more accessible. In this process, he forges friendships, mentorship, fraternity and access to a global community of adventure enthusiasts. Ultimately, he hopes that his own journey will help to create awareness around the sport and inspire an entire generation of free thinkers in India.

Our team has secured unprecedented access to Udit, his local mentors, commentators & stakeholders of the sports and of course the community itself – at home and internationally.

This is not just an underdog story of an Indian athlete who faces the odds to realize his dreams, but a larger exploration of contemporary young India that is making bold and confident strides to walk on a path where there was none. The story relates to the youthful energy and impassioned lifestyles of the young Indians as they make their space in the global community, even as the sport remains as unregulated as life. Indian sports are a rising phenomenon, and BASE is at its most extreme.

Team

The Vibe Studios

At 28, Shweta Katti remembers her traumatic childhood growing up in Kamathipura, the “red light” district at the heart of Mumbai currently undergoing the most aggressive gentrification drive in the city’s history, without bitterness.

Shweta is a Kranti girl. Kranti is an NGO with a radical approach to changing lives of girls born to sex workers. Robin Chaurasiya, its founder, became an activist when she came to India, the country of her parents’ lineage, in 2011 after a post-graduate degree in Gender Studies and working at an anti-trafficking NGO in Uganda. The second-generation Indian American, who was disqualified from the US military services in the early 2000s after she revealed her queer identity to its top brass, sparking a national debate on the US Army’s problematic stand on hiring LGBTQ people, found her life’s purpose with Kranti.

She decided to do things differently. She took about 20 girls—including Shweta, her two half-sisters, her mother who was a sex worker, and 19 other girls—out of their Kamathipura existence, mentored them, taught them, paid for their education through the limited funding she collected and through her contacts in American universities and sent nine girls to the US to study with full scholarships. Shweta returned with a psychology degree from Bard College, New York, studied Buddhist philosophy in Tuscany and has returned to Mumbai to work with Kranti. Her sister Asmita is in a performing arts college in Chicago.Seven others are also completing their education across the US.

She, and 20 other members of the Kranti community are now scattered across several spots in Mumbai city because they have been forced to leave almost every residential building where they set up base. They have lived in several houses so far. Finally, Kranti has a permanent address in Himachal Pradesh, where Robin is setting up home and office.

This is a documentary that follows the remarkable journeys of the young girls and their mentor Robin, and recreates the fire, tenacity and dedication of the Kranti community. Breaking free from a highly stigmatized past and rising up beyond their circumstances these girls women collectively tell a gripping, moving and emotional story of empowerment as they became powerful agents of change.

TEAM

Sammit Das

Sanjukta Sharma

WYSIWYG Films

This is the untold story of a few unlikely heroes who came together to revive Mayurbhanj Chhau – one of India’s most iconic folk dances – from the brink of extinction.

Emerging from militaristic roots, this intense discipline has undergone numerous transformations, facing perilous challenges along the way. From the forced disbandment of its practitioners by British colonialists to its patronage by the Mayurbhanj Bhanjdeos in their pursuit of preserving indigenous cultural – Mayurbhanj Chhau’s existence has hung in the balance for centuries. And yet, breaking social conventions and caste barriers, this dramatic dance and its performers have unified people then and now and found artistic resonance across the globe that in a way comes full circle to preserve and pass on a folk tradition that lends Mayurbhanj its identity to this day.

As the documentary unfolds, we acquaint ourselves with the collected few who are at the forefront of saving this endangered art and discover the conflicts and challenges that face them along their unique journeys. We witness the inspiring tale of the then 15 year old Subhashree Mukherjee, Chhau’s first female practitioner whose pathbreaking journey upends centuries of traditional patriarchal norms of excluding women from this martial dance drama. We also follow the struggles of the last scions of the 1000 year old Bhanjdeo royal dynasty, Akshita and Mrinalini, who have the responsibility of patronizing a local heritage that may well be lost in the sands of time unless they usher in a grassroots rehabilitation.

Today, the future of the art form rests firmly in the hands of women. This story is a testament to collective responsibility, which in turn galvanizes social unity and breaks stereotypes along the way.

With exclusive access to the Bhanjdeo sisters and path breaker Subhashree Mukherjee, and also a varied international cast of characters including Sharon, Ileana, and Carolina Prada – dancers from the US, Italy, and Columbia respectively – we meet the unexpected custodians of this glorious art form and what it took to preserve this local way of life and safeguard a lived experience that has inspired a unique culture and identity .

Team

The Vibe Studio

This is the untold story of a few unlikely heroes who came together to revive Mayurbhanj Chhau – one of India’s most iconic folk dances – from the brink of extinction.

Team
The Vibe Studio

Cliché has it that there are, and always have been, many “Indias”. Absolutely true. And what’s more, that fact has never played out in a more complex way than in the present moment.

At a macro level, some key factors are the emergence of India’s importance in the global economic and geo-political landscape, its massive population explosion heavily skewed to the under 25 demograph, the extreme divide between its haves and have nots and the huge impact of technology and digital connectivity across the length and breadth of the country cutting across all its social classes. And as a result, today, India is announcing itself to the world with a unique, nationalistic self-expression unlike ever before.

In this documentary we propose an exploration of this important cultural moment through the microcosm of the largely untold and undocumented story of its underground hip hop dance community. From the country’s gritty slums and impoverished streets, to big ticket international events, we use our unprecedented access to this pan Indian phenomenon, to capture the emotional, inspiring, and aspirational essence of a dance form born in the West and embraced by an Indian community that has largely lived in the shadows.

Within its unique Indian mutation we immerse ourselves in a world of self- taught artists, dance cyphers, neighbourhood battles and underground celebrities to peel back the layers of creative expression in the face of challenging upbringings, economic status and societal norms as they seek community, recognition and above all – identity.

Against the backdrop of its evolution – from old-school pioneers who brought hip hop to the nation in the 80’s, through its Bollywood infusion in the 90’s, we meet the new era of Indian hip hop artists who, fuelled by internet accessibility, may finally have a real shot on the global world stage. As the series unfolds, it becomes evident that the Indian hip hop dance journey faces its biggest challenge and opportunity yet – at the Olympics (Paris) and Hip-hop International (Las Vegas) in 2024 – where the Indian take on this art form is poised to earn its place as a recognized part of the world’s most prestigious hip hop dance competitions.

Visceral, raw and energetic – this is an intimate look at the street communities and urban ghettos of modern India and the moving, resilient, ingenious and uplifting true stories of its citizens.

Team

Nishant Koli

Open Air Films