Himalaya, la terre des femmes

Himalaya, Land of Women
by Marianne Chaud

France, 2008
Digital Betacam
Colour
Length: 52’
Language: English

Sking is one of the most isolated villages in the Himalayan region of Zanskar at an altitude of almost 4000 meters in the north of India. The people who live here have only three months, from August to October, to reap the harvest and store it on the roofs of the little brick houses. Summer is very brief, but winter seems to drag on forever. It is the women, be they young or old, who are responsible for the harvest, which goes on from dawn until dusk without a break. They know that winter will arrive, early and implacable. Marianne Chaud lived for one summer with these women and she tells us their story. By living with them, helping with their work, speaking their language, and listening to their worries, hopes and dreams, she gives us an intimate portrait in which the movie cameras seem to disappear. The director enters into the lives of the women of Sking as though she is one of them. In the foreground are the faces and expressions of four generations of women; in the background, the magnificent, tremendous mountains of Zanskar.

Marianne Chaud
Born in 1976, Chaud is an ethnologist with a degree in Social Sciences from the École des Hautes Etudes in Paris. She has returned regularly for seven years to the Zanskar region, her favored area of research. In 2004 she participated as an expert in the program Ushuaïa-Natures in Ladakh for TF1. Since 2005 she has collaborated with ZED as an author and director.

Director: Marianne Chaud
Subject: Marianne Chaud
Screenplay: Marianne Chaud
Photography: Marianne Chaud
Editing: Françoise Berger Garnault
Sound: Marianne Chaud
Music: Olivier Bernet

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