A Sundance Film Festival documentary titled "Nocturnes" focuses on the work of moth researchers in India and brings an auditory experience to viewers. It won the 2024 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Craft.
"Nocturnes"’ co-directors, Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, followed researchers through the mountainous forest of the eastern Himalayas, as they sought to describe and understand moth diversity at different elevations. The film brings viewers an unmatched auditory experience, unlike anything else.
It captures moth footsteps walking across leaves, elephants munching on brush, moths colliding and flapping as they congregate around researchers' lights, thunder rumbling through the forest and rain pounding down on every available surface. It is a breathtaking experience that transports the audience into the forest.
Dutta emphasized the importance of sound for the filmmakers and the effort that went into bringing an immersive soundscape to viewers.
“So at every elevation that the researchers were working, at every time of the day that they were working, or they were there, we were making these long recordings of sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours of just the passage of time, how time passes in this forest," Dutta said.
The directors were moved to make this film by a certain disconnect from nature they had noticed, that was exceptionally prevalent during the last few years, and they found Mansi Mungee work with moths would address a connection with nature while also allowing for a very cinematic element.
“We seem to be in such a hurry to move from one thing to the other, that we are not really experiencing anything. And by the pacing of this film, and by its audio visual language, we wanted to urge people to look at the world with a little bit more care and attention,” said Srinivasan.
The viewing experience left me with a renewed sense of sound. As I walked out of the theater every drip of snow was perfectly clear. I was completely present and aware of my surroundings.
"Nocturnes" will show at a number of festivals across the country and then the directors are hoping to distribute it for online viewing.
Read or listen to our extended interview here:
Nocturnes is an audio experience unlike anything else. The documentary follows researchers on their journey to describe and understand Hawk moth diversity at different elevations. Their findings have led to insights and further questions about how climate change and temperature are likely to impact moth diversity. The audio experience that accompanies the film is incredibly unique and invokes powerful feelings of the natural world. I spent some time with co-directors, Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, discussing their experience filming and inspirations behind the film.
ERIN LEWIS: Moths are a pretty specific, niche topic, why did this become your focus?
ANUPAMA SRINIVASAN: We both live in Delhi, in an urban center with a lot of traffic and pollution and noise. And we have been feeling very, very disconnected from nature, because we are constantly on our phones and the computer. And especially, you know, last few years, we've been really troubled by this, but still going on with our lives. And we've been sort of wondering what we can do to reconnect with nature. And we actually knew nothing about moths before, and we were doing a small project of some short films in the western Himalayas, and we were in a forest then. And we met we just accidentally met Mansi, who was also there doing something. And she said that Oh, my true passion is moths. And I work in the forest in the eastern Himalayas. And these moths are so amazing. And this is what I do when I put up this white screen and the blue lights on it for the right frequency to attract the moths. And then they come in hundreds and 1000s sometimes. And so she was describing this thing which seemed extremely cinematic to us. So that visual and her description, and her passion for it was what was the sort of the starting point for us. And we thought that this could be what that missing link that we were seeking, is how do we talk about this reconnecting with nature.
ERIN LEWIS: The audio is really incredible. I felt like I was there with the researchers, like I was under a little cave the whole time, watching, listening and experiencing what they were. You captured some really challenging moments for the researchers, faced with lots of rain, rock slides among other things, I was wondering while I was watching, what that was like from the filming perspective?
ANUPAMA SRINIVASAN: So the film, when you see it, it has kind of a meditative, immersive feel. And the behind the scenes was a totally different story. So it was, of course, a very difficult place to shoot in being very moist, always prone to rain. So for the equipment to keep it safe is really difficult. And it has to be constantly monitored. And also, like you saw in the firm, the work of the scientists doesn't stop when it rains. So when they work in the rain, we also have to work. So we have to have all the rain gear in place for that, to enable that. And that was really challenging, especially for the sound, because the microphones are so sensitive, and any moisture in it really messes with it. So that was one major challenge. The other was the extreme cold conditions on many of the nights. And then because we had to just be standing for hours on end to be filming it, especially because deep in the forest, it became very, very cold. So that was another sort of just physical challenge for us to deal with. And then the enormous number of insects and leeches, constantly attacking us, and the whole crew. So those were all sort of the crazy things that were happening behind the scenes. As we were shooting this really sort of slow and meditative kind of takes in the film.
ERIN LEWIS: So what inspired you to focus on those sounds and how did you go about approaching that?
ANIRBAN DUTTA: When we were there in that forest, in the day, and at night, when the researchers were doing their work, we were hearing all of this. In the first schedule when we went, we had a limited number of microphones, so we had a standard package. When we came back, we heard the audio, and we felt that it was not creating what we were hearing. So we thought about it, and then we went back with a bunch of microphones in the next schedule. So at every elevation that the researchers were working, at every time of the day that they were working, or they were there, we were making this long recordings of sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours of just the passage of time, how time passes in this forest at various elevations. And what you hear in the film is from those recordings, of course, re edited and re calibrated in a way to create a certain impact and certain emotion. And for us film is as much audio as it is visual. So that is very, very important that we pay attention to listening as much to see.
ERIN LEWIS: Well you did a really incredible job. When I left the theater after listening to all that audio, I felt like my ears were hypersensitive to everything around me. Beyond the sounds of nature you included some great interactions and conversations between the researchers. This dialogue brought a very human element to the story. Why did you decide to approach conversation with the researchers in this way?
ANIRBAN DUTTA: When you are doing something and you have to achieve in a limited period of time, you are completely focused on getting there. So every night for them was to be ready during the daytime to put up the screen at night. They had very little time to talk. We pretty much represented what we were seeing there. So we saw that they would only speak sporadically about personal things. And out of the conversations that we had we found these interesting that it gave you something more about the human characters that you are seeing other than the moth characters. So, we just tried to represent what we saw and interpret what we saw instead of just documenting what we saw. So in a way that interpretation was to bring out other nuances that you can get through human conversation.
ANUPAMA SRINIVASAN: One decision we made very early on is that we were not going to do any interviews with the human characters. So everything, whether it's the signs or the anything about their personal life's coming through the conversations which they are having. As they also become a little bit closer spending time together, then towards the end, they have, you know, conversations about their families and so on, because we didn't want to make it a portrait of Mansi, in which we are saying, okay, what is her background, why did she become a scientist, what is the challenge of being a, you know, female scientist in India, so, we didn't want to go on that path, because just by representing a woman, in doing this fieldwork in one of the most difficult places on Earth, and doing this day in and day out with so much love and rigor for us, that's what she represents, we don't need to hear any other story, this is what we wanted to present of her.
ERIN LEWIS: I think that the story and Mansi Mungee’s passion is palpable just from watching her interact with the other researchers. The human element is so prevalent even though the film’s focus is on nature. So, for both of you as directors, what inspired you on a personal level to create Nocturnes?
ANIRBAN DUTTA: For me, personally, it's a love letter to my children. And this is a letter to all the children, to just inspire them, or to just tell them, give me one hour of your time, and come in, feel this what we felt, and maybe after that, some of them will get inspired to go out in the wilderness again.
ANUPAMA SRINIVASAN: One of the important things for me was to just slow down. And that is the reason also why the pace of the film is as it is, because we seem to be in such a hurry to move from one thing to the other, that we are not really experiencing anything. And by the pacing of this firm, and by its audio visual language, we wanted to urge people to look at the world with a little bit more care and attention.
