From the Classroom to the Festival: Animananda at the Religion Today Film Festival!
What happens when a student-led documentary project becomes an international festival partnership? So Fare Films Assistant Director Vishwa Parmar reflects on the two-year journey of Religion Stories and Animananda—as more than 60 emerging creators from 21 countries celebrate their work together at the 29th Religion Today Film Festival and a new professional collaboration takes shape.
From Idea to World-Class Film Festival
When So Fare Films launched the Religion Stories project in Fall 2023, we hoped to create something far larger than a documentary series. We wanted to build an educational laboratory—a place where students from different disciplines, countries, and worldviews could learn the craft of documentary storytelling by making something together that genuinely mattered. We wanted to make an impact that encompassed the whole enchilada of the filmmaking process: from earliest project dream, through the full creation process, and our eventual audience.
Over the past 3 years, that vision brought together more than 60 emerging creators from
21 countries. Writers, researchers, editors, sociologists, psychologists, filmmakers, designers, musicians, marketers, translators, and communications students all contributed their unique perspectives to a project exploring one of humanity's oldest and most universal questions: How do people make meaning?
Today, we are delighted to share that this journey has reached a milestone we never imagined when the project began. Animananda—the capstone film of the Religion Stories docuseries—has been invited to screen out of competition at the 29th Religion Today Film Festival in Trento this September. Even more exciting, the festival and So Fare Films are launching a new educational partnership built around our shared commitment to intercultural dialogue and the professional formation of emerging media makers.
Rather than inviting only the finished film, Religion Today invited the people behind it.
This September, 12 members of the So Fare Films team will travel to Trento, where they will become part of the festival itself—working alongside professional staff in communications, media production, guest relations, publicity, and festival operations while representing the collaborative spirit that made Religion Stories possible.
For us, this partnership feels like a meaningful affirmation of the educational philosophy that has guided So Fare Films from the beginning: that young creators learn best by contributing to real projects, working across disciplines, and collaborating with professionals who invite them into authentic creative communities.
No one embodies that spirit more beautifully than this project's Assistant Director, Vishwa Parmar. Vishwa joined Religion Stories in January 2024 as a writer and episode editor. Over the following 2.5 years, she became an indispensable creative partner whose warmth, generosity, thoughtful leadership, and unwavering belief in both the project and the people behind it helped shape not only the series itself but the culture of the team creating it. As we prepare to share Animananda with audiences for the first time, we wanted to give her the final word.
Assistant Director Vishwa Parmar
The relationship between me and God,
doesn’t involve marble temples or saffron priests.
The conversation between me and God,
doesn’t need a ritual, or witnesses
The love between me and God,
doesn't need to be proven.
Between me and God,
there is no distance left to cross.
I grew up celebrating almost all the religious festivals—Christmas, Eid, Holi and Diwali and many more. I remember when I was younger, my father once told my brother and me how he used to visit masjids in his youth, while my aunt would attend Sunday masses. Back home in India, despite coming from different religious backgrounds, we were all taught that our differences in language, culture, and traditions were bridges that brought us closer to one another.
The first thing I remember learning in school was "unity in diversity." It sounds like a slogan, but growing up, it shaped how I saw the world around me. I remember learning about secularism in social science class—how anyone can practice any religion, or none if they prefer. To my thirteen-year-old self, that idea felt both liberating and deeply comforting.
Coming from a country as religiously diverse as India and arriving in Italy, in the heart of Christianity, my first visit to St. Peter's Basilica felt almost surreal. Studying abroad in Rome, and meeting people from all around the world made me realize that for the first time, I was encountering faith and culture outside the context I had always studied in textbooks and movies. It gave me the chance to see how people lived, how they practiced, and how they connected with their beliefs.
I first joined Religion Stories back in January of 2024. I started as an intern, then a research assistant, and now I am a writer and Assistant Director. Being part of the early stages of pre-production, shaping the scripts, and finding a narrative thread that connects all the different religions and episodes taught me how, despite being so diverse, our stories of religion are in dialogue with one another. In this process I found a shared thread across different religions—a desire to do good, to connect, and to understand oneself.
Religion Stories brought those early lessons from my childhood back to me in a more grounded way. My father always said to me, "If you want to truly help people, don't search inside the temples—look outside at those who are sitting by the gates." And that stayed with me to this very day.
After working on Religion Stories for 2.5 years, I find myself at a loss for words. Through countless edits, feedback rounds, production discussions over pizza and lime tea, I can trace my own journey alongside it—moving abroad by myself, making friends, constantly learning and unlearning. This project truly grew with me, and somewhere along the way I became deeply attached to it. Now that it is finally complete and ready to find its place in the world, I feel unexpectedly sentimental.
I recently completed my undergraduate studies, so the timing feels poignantly precise. It's a bittersweet moment for me because, as much as I've worked on this project with dedication and care, I know it's time for it to set out on its own journey. I'll allow myself this one cliché: it does feel like something I've raised.
Working on this docuseries and short film—reading, writing, editing, and listening to people share their personal journeys about their faiths—brought me closer not just to them, but to myself. These stories go beyond borders and languages because they are rooted in something universal. I believe that at the core of every faith, every belief system, there is a simple, shared temple of truth: people are searching for hope, for meaning, for something to hold onto in their lives, and most of us carry a desire to be kind.
To every member of the Religion Stories and Animananda teams—thank you. This milestone belongs to all of us.
About the Author
Vishwa Parmar is the Research and Content Creation Assistant at the popular YouTube Channel @ReligionForBreakfast. She recently graduated from John Cabot University with a degree in English literature and minors in creative writing, communications and art and design. She worked as Writer, Editor and Assistant Director at So Fare Films for the docuseries Religion Stories as well as the short documentary film Animananda. She enjoys writing short stories, novels, and poetry. Currently she is planning to do her masters in creative writing and work more in the film industry. Follow her writing and photography at on Substack and Instagram, and more of her work at her Linktree.
An Invitation to Watch and to Listen
We hope you enjoyed this taste of the So Fare Films educational mission to provide a quality professional formation for emerging storytellers from all backgrounds! Whether you can donate resources or not, we want you to be part of our mission. See below for more info on the "parent" project of Animananda, the docuseries Religion Stories.
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