Varanasi is the Indian city where Hindus go to die. Stretching along the Ganges, Varanasi holds great spiritual significance because Hindu scriptutres say that anyone who dies there will attain moksha—liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Berlin-based director Dan Braga Ulvestad captures life and death in India’s heartland in this moving documentary filled with exquisite cinematic moments. By the River starts its narrative journey with the city’s “death hotels,” dedicated apartments where people wait to die, sometimes for decades, so they can be cremated on the banks of the Ganges.
Watch my first trip to India in this travel documentary, as I spent 6 weeks backpacking around the country. I spent 3 weeks backpacking through the cities of the north and then another 3 weeks in the beaches and backwaters of the south.
Thousands of people from every corner of the world go to India every year for a spiritual experience that provides self-knowledge and healing of past trauma.