In a small village of Kashmir, Farah, the caretaker of a small piece of land has lost her husband under tragic, unexplained circumstances. Feeling overwhelmed with grief, Farah clings onto her late husband’s memories. Under threat of her home being uprooted by the prospect of a new buyer, Farah finds a new lease of life when she discovers the saplings her husband brought to their kitchen garden. Just as she is done planting them, she discovers small rat droppings around the garden. With this Farah dives deep into a point of no return as she dedicates her life towards protecting the saplings at the cost of affecting her sanity.
Orphanage of Memories is a protest against how the average Indian views Kashmir in movies - where the focus is always on the landscape and never on the people. We were keen on telling the story of an individual and not the serenity of Kashmir. This is precisely why we chose to set the story in the harshest part of winter, before snowfall starts - when the whole valley is engulfed in a blanket of deary gray monotones.
Rayit Hashmat Qazi is an independent filmmaker from Kashmir, who is currently working in Mumbai, India. He has worked as an assistant to International as well as Indian directors on TVC’s for the last 6 years. From Jim Sonzero to Rob Cohen and Harvey Brown, Rayit has been a right hand to a wide array of filmmakers while working with Bang Bang Films on brands as diverse as AIRTEL, Tanishq, Britannia, Pepsi, Loreal, etc. In addition to this Rayit has worked as an assistant director on the critically acclaimed Mukti Bhawan that went on to premiere at the Venice Film Festival amongst other international film festival giants.
This experience was instrumental in helping him transition from assisting to directing ads of his own. Over the course of the last two years, Rayit has made commercials for brands like Britannia, HUL, BMC, Airtel, etc. His maiden short Do Cup Chai (Two Cups of Tea) which sees the story of two ex-lovers who meet each other to fulfill a promise over a cup of tea, was nominated in the Best Short Film category at the NYIFF (New York Indian Film Festival). It further went on to premiere at Silk Screen International Festival and the prestigious Brahmaputra Valley Film Festival in Assam.
Currently, Rayit is developing a show for Amazon as well as MX player. He has completed his graduation in Audio Visual Production/ Filmmaking from Symbiosis Institute Of Media and Communication. 
The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) is the oldest, most prestigious film festival screening premieres of feature, documentary and
short films made from, of, and about the Indian subcontinent in the Independent, arthouse, alternate and diaspora genres.
