Bodies Bend Backwards, Film still, Video, 37 Min, 2025.
An audiovisual research project by Lea Maria Wittich & Arijit Bhattacharyya, 2025.
Bodies Bend Backwards, Installation shot, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, 2025.
© Maxim Gorki Theater, Foto: Egbert Trogemann
© Maxim Gorki Theater, Foto: Egbert Trogemann
Bodies Bend Backwards is a research-driven documentary project that explores the intersections of yoga – as both a physical and spiritual practice – with ideological frameworks across historical and contemporary contexts. The project investigates how yoga has been manipulated and recontextualized by various groups, from early 20th-century cultural figures and National Socialists to present-day Hindu nationalists. It aims to illuminate the political instrumentalization of body practices and their structural ties to appropriation, particularly within German and Indian cultural histories. For Kiosk for a Magic Future, the project is presented as an installation, activated through the performative lecture Dogmatic Asanas.
Part of 7th Berliner Herbstsalon ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE
Gefördert durch Die Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Thüringen, den Kreativfonds der Bauhaus Universität Weimar, den Ausgleichsfonds der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
With Interviews from (In order of appearance)
Saviya Lopes, Yogesh Barve, Dr. Britta Ohm, Banojyotsna Lahiri, Sahmat Collective, Aban Raza, Ram Rahman, Sohail Hashmi, Hannan Mollah, Leena Dabiru,
Camera
Soumik Ghosh, Khandakar Ohida, Swagata Bhattacharyya, Mon Sisu Sitrawaha, Lea Maria Wittich, Arijit Bhattacharyya
Sound
Shibayan Halder, Souvojit Roy, Muhamed Mudassir Sheikh, Arijit Bhattacharyya
Production
Adhika Agnes Ferdinand, Shibayan Halder
Editing
Swagata Bhattacharyya, Lea Maria Wittich, Arijit Bhattacharyya
Voice Over
Adhika Agnes Ferdinand
Color Correction
Sabyasachi Bhattacharjee