Munmun Dhalaria | India | 29 mins | 2022

LANGUAGE: Ladakhi, Hindi, English

The roof of the world, from the Pamirs of Central Asia to the Karakoram and Himalayas of South Asia, is the Earth’s largest repository of ice outside the poles, and it’s melting. Increasingly frequent mountain disasters have put billions of lives at risk. Endangered wild species like the Snow Leopard are suffering and so are the 1.65 billion people dependent on these mountains and some of Asia’s mightiest rivers originating here. In the villages of the upper Indian Himalayas, life revolves around basic survival in an uninhabitable environment. The snow that makes half the year unlivable, is also the lifeblood of the agrarian populations that depend on it for the only harvest of the year. Today, low snowfall and receding glaciers threaten livelihoods in this region forcing them to become climate refugees.

This film was an official selection for ALT EFF 2023.