Case Studies

How do you show a 2,000-year-old engineering system at work when there is no footage of it?

For this film, we used AI to reconstruct Bihar’s Ahar–Pyne system, bringing the Mauryan-era water channels and reservoirs to life and showing how the system worked as a network for diverting, storing and distributing water.

The reconstruction was based on external historical and technical research into the Ahar–Pyne system. This research informed the visual development so that the structure and functioning shown in the film remained grounded in the documented system. The film was then developed using AI-led visual generation and animation to recreate the historical environment and bring the system to life.

The film formed part of ICICI Foundation’s ongoing CSR project films and was released on Engineers’ Day. It has since generated 3.7 million YouTube views.

See also: When a place becomes story, another ICICI Foundation project where local culture and music become the language of the story.