Raah-e-Nanak

Raah-e-Nanak is a documentary that begins with a question and ends with a discovery. Rose, a Punjabi Sikh filmmaker, sets out to make a film about her younger brother Heather, who has been traveling to the remote Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh since 2016, bringing wheat, fuel, winter clothing, dog food, and medical supplies to Buddhist communities who struggle through brutal winters with little outside support. Heather doesn't think of what he does as extraordinary. He thinks of it as simply what a person does. The film is Rose's attempt to understand why, and what Guru Nanak has to do with any of it.

The journey takes Rose and her crew deep into the Himalayas, where they encounter Ishita Khanna, the founder of Spiti Ecosphere, who has devoted her life to sustainable development in the valley; Padma and her volunteers, who bake rotis every Sunday in the freezing cold to feed the stray dogs of Kaza; Lama Chacha, a Buddhist elder who expresses profound admiration for the Sikh culture of seva; and Amchi Norbu, a traditional Tibetan healer who practices a centuries-old system of medicine. By the end, Rose realizes she never needed to explain Guru Nanak to anyone. He was already there in every face the camera found.