One day, while reading a collection of folk tales by Paul Bunyan, filmmaker Shishir Jha was enraptured. They told stories that resonated with him and illuminated the relationship between humans and nature. This inspired him to create Tortoise Under the Earth, his first feature film about the life of a tribal couple from Jharkhand, coping with the loss of their daughter.

Jagannath and Mugli practise a scene