under the ginkgo tree

A documentary on the world's oldest Ginkgo tree. The Millennium Ginkgo Biloba, the oldest living maidenhair tree, has seen a lot of things happen beneath it. A lady sells ribbons beneath the tree today, while the tree, being one of the oldest of living organisms, a monument of time, is surrounded by people waiting to be photographed around it.

Under the Ginkgo Tree

The Millennium Ginkgo Biloba, the oldest living maidenhair tree, has seen a lot of things happen beneath it. A lady sells ribbons under the it today, while the tree, being one of the oldest of living organisms, a monument of time, is surrounded by people waiting to be photographed around it.

YouTube link for the film

Looking China invites a number of students from around the world to come to China and make films on their culture, from an outsider lens.

That is a brilliant idea - things - minute things - things that we often take for granted and skip through our eyes, can be stories full of history and tell us something about ourselves and our place in space and time. I wish India gets something like this. China is a beautiful country, and quite different from what the West/internet wants it to look like, and very similar to India - India's problems and solutions lie closer to China than to the West. But that is a different story and a different post altogether.

The film above I made with two of the most lovely people I know, Liu Naying and Cao Yang, my producer and translator respectively, under the supervision of Arun Gupta. The tree, which is nearly 4000 years old is somewhat of a relic, a rare living fossil in scientific terms - like a monument of time itself. It is only natural people would like to click photographs around it, locking themselves in time. And a lovely lady sells ribbons around the tree.