A rural village never wanted to be a city’s landfill or a distant blur in Reels but rather home to new imaginations.

Bringing Down a Mountain dissects the intersecting themes of access, abolition and caste through the experiences of residents of a rural village and that of a hyper-urban city. The film follows the village residents’ dreams—of mobile data, digital payment and relief from menial work. What happens when the landfill is full, and dreams want to break free?

While underlining that all digital barriers are social, the film exposes the plurality of tech innovations and challenges the extractivist and ableist tech.

Made through the Future|Money grant, Bringing Down A Mountain is a speculative film centred around financial inclusion with a push and pull between caste abolition and Unified Payment Interface, a mobile digital payment system in India. It was premiered in November 2023 at the Interledger Summit 2023 in Costa Rica.