Serena Aurora is a British-Indian documentary filmmaker and founder of Aurora’s Eye Films, an independent documentary studio based in Auroville, South India. Over more than five years, her Matrimandir & I series has brought together voices and experiences from Auroville, exploring inner stillness, belonging, human unity and the search for a deeper centre within ourselves. This journey has also grown into her feature documentary The Centre Within, accompanied by the participatory question: “Where is your centre?”
“For me, these films have always been about much more than a remarkable place or building. I began by listening to people speak about the Matrimandir, and gradually the question became something more intimate: What helps us come back to ourselves? Where do we find our centre amid the noise and movement of everyday life?
I don’t want the films to give people an answer. My hope is that they create a little space for reflection, silence, dialogue and the discovery of each person’s own experience. That is why I’m so happy about this connection with the InnerBeing Project: you may find beautiful, unexpected ways for those questions to come alive in your community.”
ABOUT THE MATRIMANDIR & I
75 voices. One extraordinary place.
The Matrimandir & I is an intimate documentary project exploring the personal relationship between Aurovilians and the Matrimandir — the spiritual and geographical heart of Auroville.
Through 75 individual voices, the project brings together memories, experiences and reflections from people of different generations, cultures and backgrounds. Each person responds to the Matrimandir in their own way: as a place of silence, beauty, transformation, questioning, belonging and inner discovery.
What began as a series of individual conversations has grown into an extensive documentary portrait of Auroville and its people.
The project now includes 12 documentary episodes, 75 individual interviews, a collection of short films, and the feature documentary The Center Within.
Together, these stories offer something larger than any single perspective — a living portrait of a community and its continuing experiment in consciousness, human unity and collective life.
At its centre is one extraordinary place.
The Matrimandir.
The Centre Within — public trailer:
The Centre Within — director’s introduction:
Where Is Your Centre? reflection resources and film website:
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