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Broken Gods

India has one of the largest populations of Indigenous people in the world, known locally as adivasis or tribals. As India's current Hindu nationalist government pushes to redefine India as a homogenous Hindu nation, adivasis’ ways of life are under greater threat. Set among the Rathava and Bhil adivasi communities of western India, broken gods document the social impact of Hindu religious evangelism among India’s Indigenous groups. As Indigenous people join Hindu religious sects, their old gods are literally becoming broken - devotional mural paintings are being whitewashed from homes, and the earthen figurines in honour of village gods and ancestors are being left to fall apart. While for those who convert joining a Hindu sect offers the allure of a better life, those who continue to follow their old ways have become ostracized by their communities. Their broken gods have lost the power to protect them from illness and scarcity.

42 min | 2019 | India & UK
In Gujarati, Hindi & Rathavi with English subtitles  
Directed by Dakxin Bajranje Chhara and Alice Tilche
Produced by Alice Tilche & Nomad Movies
Funded by: The Leverhulme Trust & The London School of Economics 

Screenings & Film Festivals

2019 Preview Screening, London School of Economics and Political Science, South Asia Anthropology Conference
2019 Invited Screening, University of Cambridge, Department of Anthropology
2020 Invited Screening, Brunel University, London
2020 Invited Screening, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester
2020 Official Selection,  SCA/SVA Distribute Film Festival
2020 Vikalp Film Festival
2020 7th Art Festival Film Festival (Winner of Best Documentary)
2020 Fiorenzo Serra Film Festival
2021 Jaipur International Film Festival
2021 RAI Film Festival
2021 Ethnographilm Paris
2021 Essex DocFest 2021 Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival