The project entitled PEACOCK PILGRIMAGE comprises two components: the screenplay for a feature film, entitled Peacock Angel, and an exegesis, which explores the underlying influences on the screenplay. Peacock Angel is the story of a young girl, Deva, who grew up in India with a fascination for peacocks, especially the fictional peacock angel. After a time of isolation as a teenager in the West, she returns to India to reconcile with a tragic past and reconnect with her true longings. India is the place that mends her wounded heart. Within the symbolic realms of the screenplay Deva, as the central character, becomes the peacock ‘goddess’. Her journey allows us to explore layers within the themes of identity, memory and fantasy. The project holds an East/West theme, of disillusionment with Western material values and appreciation of the depth of Indian culture, of “the land where the heart is king”. Field research on the peacock, the key motif of the project, has led me on a journey through India that has been full of synchronicity and given me a particularly rich taste of her timeless culture. The exegesis elaborates on aspects of my journey, on the concepts of synchronicity and pilgrimage, and on the motif of peacock – highlighting its symbolic and mythical meanings. It also situates Peacock Angel within the field of world cinema, in the category of Western films made in India and the genre of magic realism.

The project entitled PEACOCK PILGRIMAGE comprises two components: the screenplay for a feature film, entitled Peacock Angel, and an exegesis, which explores the underlying influences on the screenplay. Peacock Angel is the story of a young girl, Deva, who grew up in India with a fascination for peacocks, especially the fictional peacock angel. After a time of isolation as a teenager in the West, she returns to India to reconcile with a tragic past and reconnect with her true longings. India is the place that mends her wounded heart. Within the symbolic realms of the screenplay Deva, as the central character, becomes the peacock ‘goddess’. Her journey allows us to explore layers within the themes of identity, memory and fantasy. The project holds an East/West theme, of disillusionment with Western material values and appreciation of the depth of Indian culture, of “the land where the heart is king”. Field research on the peacock, the key motif of the project, has led me on a journey through India that has been full of synchronicity and given me a particularly rich taste of her timeless culture. The exegesis elaborates on aspects of my journey, on the concepts of synchronicity and pilgrimage, and on the motif of peacock – highlighting its symbolic and mythical meanings. It also situates Peacock Angel within the field of world cinema, in the category of Western films made in India and the genre of magic realism.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 17, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-56).