in the forest hangs a bridge

'In the Forest hangs a Bridge' is a film about the building of a thousand foot suspension bridge by the people of an Adi village, an evocation of the tribal community that makes it possible, and a reflection on the strength and fragility of the idea of community. Located deep in the forest hills of the Siang valley of Arunachal Pradesh, at the north-eastern extremity of India, these elegant structures of cane and bamboo are the distinctive mark of the Adi tribe. Nearly six months of incessant rain in the Siang valley means that the cane and bamboo will eventually rot and fall away, and the bridge needs to be rebuilt every year. In less than three days, a bridge more than a thousand feet long is finished. A day later, we see several hundred men from the village cross to the other side for the annual ritual, as they have for several hundred years.