Our Hoolocks

6 young children, in two rows of three, stand with their hands awkwardly raised in celebration. Behind them is a lush, green forest with tall and slim trees. The children are all wearing a paper mask that is a simple drawing of a young Hoolock Gibbon called Twiki. It is Twik's first birthday although he is not in the picture. We assume he is somewhere up in the trees behind them.

About the Project

Sidhanta, a fisherman, fights to protect India's fast-vanishing ape species, the Hoolock Gibbons in his village nestled in Northeast India. However, this endearing tale of human-animal coexistence is threatened when a nearby oilfield blast disrupts the delicate ecosystem.

Ragini Nath, Director

Director Ragini Nath is a documentary filmmaker and photographer. She has training in documentary filmmaking from The New School, New York. She has previously worked at the intersection of journalism, film, and social change. Her first independent documentary production Bar and Girl, 2018 has premiered at national and international film festivals. She has also had experience working on projects for the History Channel, Netflix, Disney Hotstar and Bollywood. Her photography work has been exhibited in the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival, Angkor Photo Festival, and India Photo Festival. Our Hoolocks is her first feature-length documentary.

Chinmoy Sonowal, Director

Director Chinmoy Sonowal is a documentary filmmaker and a landscape photographer. He has studied creative documentary filmmaking at Sri Aurobindo Center for Arts and Communication, New Delhi. He has a keen interest in working for films that revolve around conservation, natural history, and resource politics. His first film Bound By Us, 2019 looked at the impacts of human intervention on a forest bounded by the city of New Delhi. Bound by Us has been part of several domestic festivals including the Dharamshala International Film Festival and Kolkata International Film Festival Our Hoolocks is also his first feature-length documentary.

Gary Byung-seok, Producer

Producer Gary Byung-seok KAM is the first ever Korean documentary producer nominated for an Oscar and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). He produced Planet of Snail (2011), which was the first Asian documentary that won Best Feature-Length Documentary at the Int’l Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and many more international awards. His recent filmography includes an Oscar-nominated film In the Absence (2018), a multi-awarded documentary Shadow Flowers (2019), and Crossing Beyond, the official Olympic film for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Kweighbaye Kotee, Producer

Producer Kweighbaye Kotee is a Liberian-American, film producer and writer. Her filmography includes Bushwick Diaries and Indie Cinema New York: ICNY (2015). Developing creative platforms that equally include women and other underrepresented voices is a personal mission of hers and a significant component of her projects and businesses including Bushwick Film Festival, Bushwick Film Institute, and Local Citizens where she works with corporate companies to build internal programs that support diverse creators and low income-communities. She has delivered a TEDx talk about the need for diversity in Hollywood, moderated and spoken on panels about filmmaking, entrepreneurship, and diversity in entertainment at JPMorgan Chase, Google, Société Générale, Blackstone, and universities including NYU, Pratt University, North Western University and the University of Denver. In 2019, Kweighbaye co-produced a women’s peace film festival in West Africa sponsored by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund featuring documentaries made by local Liberian Women. She has been featured on NBC, Fox, NY1, Huff Post, and AMNY and was featured in a national campaign by PopSugar and Delta Airlines for her work in putting women of color behind the camera. In 2021, Kweighbaye was recognized by Lucy Lui, for her groundbreaking work in Film & Entertainment.