ABOUT THE PROJECT

Incarnations of I shines a light on trauma and healing within the Bengali community, sharing a glimpse of India that is at once complex, nuanced, and stunning. By following one woman's journey to understand her own pain, we show how art and faith intertwine to bring people—from all walks of life—solace from personal tragedy.

STORY

Incarnations of I is the story of a Bengali American woman, who after decades of upholding the deeply rooted worship of a Hindu warrior goddess, mines the personal and collective traumas behind the art of clay idol-making—questioning what it means to create, to heal, and to be loved. 

Over the course of the film, she connects with three artisans in West Bengal whose labor of molding statues for religious festivals, by hand, is a salve for painful life experiences not unlike her own. For 40 years, the idol of the goddess that her immigrant father sculpted in the States was her spiritual anchor as she struggled with depression and anxiety stemming from abuse. 

In a culture that stigmatizes mental health, she now sees herself mirrored in the artisans’ stories as they break cycles of generational trauma and forge lives full of creativity and faith. While hard truths emerge, Incarnations of I celebrates healing amid the beauty and chaos of worship. 

URGENCY

According to one study, the estimated number of people suffering from depression in India is over 56 million. This staggering number excludes the Indian diaspora, throughout which the model minority myth has further stigmatized conversations about mental health. While our film uses the lens of a particular group and a particular faith to tell this story, our hope is that it will encourage viewers of all backgrounds to have open and honest discussions about trauma. We want to break the silence around abuse, self-harm, grief, and loss, so that generations of people can begin to heal. 

We have been working on Incarnations of I since 2022. Over the past three years, we have delved deeper and deeper into our participants' interior lives, the emotional details of which they have been gracious enough to share with us. As we near the end of filming, we need your help with post-production costs, like editing, color grading, and music, in order to meet our overall goals.

GOALS

Destigmatize Mental Health: The Bengali and Bengali American community, like many South Asian and East Asian cultures, view mental health challenges as personal or private at best, a sign of weakness or illness at worst. This film challenges both views by normalizing discussions about depression, anxiety, abuse, and self-harm.

Promote Healing: Our goal is to allow participants and viewers alike to voice their pain, to empathize with each other, and to encourage the use of creative mediums to heal from trauma. We delve into the interior lives of our subjects so that our audiences can reflect on their past and present, in the hope that they choose to go on their own healing journey.

Highlight Artisan Craft: Many documentaries about the Indian subcontinent focus on systemic problems: poverty and pollution, violence and fundamentalism. While these are truths we cannot ignore, we have chosen to highlight the beauty of artisan craft, of tradition, and of faith, in all their nuance and layered complexity.

Spark Dialogue: With planned screenings and community building events, we will create forums for creative expression and inter-generational dialogue. These in-person events will take place at schools, universities, museums, places of worship, and cultural centers as an invitation to people of all backgrounds and faiths to participate in healing.  

PARTICIPANTS

Sharbari Bose Kamat
Sharbari has battled anxiety and depression as far back as she can remember. Her family basement, where the Durga statue her father sculpted resides, was her confessional for a childhood trauma that she kept silent for 35 years. 

Parimal Bose
Parimal, a Bengali immigrant and Sharbari's father, was inspired as a child to sculpt the Goddess Durga. He finally did so in the 1980s, partly out of grief in the wake of losing his mother, partly out of fear that he wouldn’t live much longer than her.

Shreetoma Ojha
Shreetoma is a transgender makeup artist, content creator, and model in the suburbs of Kolkata, who began sculpting clay idols for her family's religious observances and then started her own idol-making business. She grappled with self-harm during her transition.

Arka Patra
Arka is a young fashion photographer in West Bengal who began sculpting religious statues at his family’s request after his father passed away. Over the course of the film, he shares his thoughts on the duties and responsibilities of being a son, an artist, and a believer.

China Pal
China is one of the first female artisans in Kumortuli, the famous potters' quarter in Kolkata, and is known for a particular style of clay idol called "Ak Chaali Durga." She took over her father’s business after he died and now lives with her elderly mother. 

BUDGET BREAKDOWN

During post-production is when a film comes alive. With your donations, we will 1) hire a talented editor and a colorist who will both work behind the scenes to make our creative vision a reality and 2) help our music composer with the resources she needs to create a beautiful and compelling soundtrack. Your contributions to our crowdfunding campaign will literally bring Incarnations of I to life. 

TEAM

Vanessa Roth: Executive Producer & Co-Writer
Vanessa Roth has helmed premium documentary content and social justice impact work for over 25 years. Her projects include Mary J. Blige’s My Life, Anxious Nation, Liberation Heroes, and the Netflix Original docuseries Daughters of Destiny, just to name a few. She has won over 60 awards including the Oscar, The Leonard Maltin Humanitarian Award, and The Television Academy Emmy Honors Award for Social Impact.

Sharbari Bose Kamat: Director, Producer & Co-Writer
A Bengali American filmmaker, Sharbari Bose Kamat is deeply passionate about sparking dialogue around mental health and giving voice to the underrepresented, particularly women of color and the LGBTQ+ community. She is founder of Hunter & Tigress Media and a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Film Independent, A-Doc, and The D-word. Incarnations of I is her first feature-length film, and she is in early development on two other doc projects.

Rianjali Bhowmick: Co-Producer & Music Composer
An award-winning singer-songwriter and composer, Rianjali Bhowmick has collaborated with A.R. Rahman, Bishop Briggs, Shawn Mendes, and U2, co-writing Ahimsa for U2's Joshua Tree Tour. Her credits include the Netflix Original docuseries Daughters of Destiny, Amazon Prime’s Harmony, Rahman's Le Musk, Love Sonia, and festival favorites Seeing God and Saltwater. She has scored for over 30 films.

CONTEXT

In 2021, West Bengal’s Durga Puja was recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. The annual Hindu festival, which honors the goddess Durga, generates between $4-8 billion and draws a crowd of tens of millions over the course of just one week. Attendees come to view the more than 3,000 ornate, outdoor pavilions that house sculptures of the goddess—a religious celebration at its core, but also one of the largest public art installations in the world. And, shockingly, every piece is temporary; pavilions are painstakingly taken apart and statues submerged in local bodies of water to echo the life process of letting go and becoming one with the earth.

But the world knows little about the artisans at the heart of it all. For centuries, the creation and worship of the goddess in West Bengal has been the work of men of specific castes. From priests to sculptors, it is ironically men who have invoked and imagined the female form. To this day, male sculptors in the city of Kolkata live and work in a designated artisan community called Kumortuli, where women, LGBTQ+ people, and those of other castes were historically excluded. However, this exclusion also birthed a revivalist movement among the very people outside the traditional artisan community. Incarnations of I tells the story of the “others”—those drawn to the craft of clay idol-making and healing in the process.

THANK YOU!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for supporting this film. Creating it has been so meaningful for our director, whose story echoes the stories of so many women. We felt compelled to share the pain and the beauty that are deep-seated in tradition, in healing, and in the messiness of speaking up and letting go. It is a joy to share a glimpse of the vibrant artisan community in West Bengal as well—a part of India that hasn't gotten the global exposure it most definitely deserves. The subjects featured in Incarnations of I are talented and layered artisans who defy the stark categories into which media and society often feel compelled to place them. It has been an honor to capture their art, faith, and personal experiences, as it has been to share Sharbari's.

*Your donation is tax-deductible! INCARNATIONS OF I is a fiscally sponsored project of the International Documentary Association (IDA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions in support of INCARNATIONS OF I are payable to IDA and are tax-deductible, less the value of any goods or services received, as allowed by law. The value of goods and services offered is noted under each donation level. If you would like to deduct the entire donation, decline the reward at checkout.