Plot

Shaday is the first installment in the Indian Himalayan Film Series-a hybrid observational documentary following life, ritual, and survival in the remote village of Shaday in Ladakh's Zanskar Valley. Shot year-round across all four seasons, the film documents not only the final rhythms of this vanishing village, but also the journeys required to reach it. As the filmmakers return again and again, the film expands beyond the village-capturing seasonal transitions, cultural memory, and the quiet resilience of a region undergoing deep change. Travel between Mumbai, Leh, and Shaday takes place through shifting mountain weather, frozen passes, festivals, monasteries, and treks that heal something human within us.

The Indian Himalayan Film Series is a long-term project led by filmmaker Mahi Kumar, encompassing documentaries, films, TV and web series as they come into being in their own time. It moves state by state through the Himalayan belt: Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, and West Bengal. The series documents lives shaped by altitude, culture, labor, migration, and time-through remote villages, small towns, and mountain markets. Each piece centers local voices and everyday presence. If the series can offer more than just film-by way of support, access, or visibility-it will have done its work well.