Simon Busch

Bio

Simon Busch finished his film studies at Dortmund Technical University in 2004. Thereafter he started his own business as a filmmaker. From the beginning he focused his activities on documentaries and arthouse cinema. He produced several films of his own and built up a sales and distribution company, which marketed films by Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson (Samsara) among others.

In 2012 he founded the Busch Media Group and together with his DP Alexander Sass travelled all over the world. His movie African Safari Adventure 3D led the documentary charts of amazon.de for many weeks. Currently, the climax of his work is Fascinating India 3D.

Reflection

At the Kumbh Mela, there were 35 million people – barely half of Germany’s total population – crowded together in only eight square kilometers. This is simply unimaginable! It was impossible to move forward by car or tuk-tuk. We had to struggle through the crowd on foot. Despite our press passes and shooting permissions, we were still not allowed to get closer than one hundred meters to those bathing.

50.000 policemen and soldiers controlled the site. It was their job to prevent a mass panic. We played cat and mouse with them. Time and again we were discovered and had to disappear into the crowd. Then we continued filming from another point. To get closer to the bathing pilgrims, we had rented a small boat to get us to the shallow waters of the Ganges just before sunrise. We were able to spend some magical hours until noon amidst the pilgrims, shooting continually, and wearing nothing but our underwear.

The pilgrims didn’t feel disturbed by the cameras. To the contrary, they were downright euphoric. They were happy to share with us this probably most important day of their life, which they had imagined with excitement for years. Somehow this happiness spread to us. I hope you can see this feeling in the movie.