Mila's Journey

Everyone wonders what would happen if they could relive a momentous time of their lives with the benefit of experience and hindsight. This was the possibility facing Mila Jansen.

 

What do you do when your ex-husband - the father of two of your children and the true love of your life - lies dying of cancer and hands you a suitcase containing rolls of undeveloped 8mm film?

 

It is a film of the amazing 1,500 km trek the you made in 1976, high up in the Ladakh region of the Himalayas. A trek that turned out to be an unforgettable, life-changing journey with irrevocable, poignant consequences.

 

Mila's Journey follows the story of Mila watching the rushes together with her ex just before he dies, and her decision to return after more than 30 years to try and find their Tibetan guide, Tashi, and experience the original trek again.

Mila Jansen was a rebel in Amsterdam in the Sixties, a hippy in India in the Seventies, a single mother with 4 teenage kids in the eighties and nineties in Amsterdam, and now a successful businesswoman in the world of Hemp.

 

The resulting documentary shows Mila's experiences physical and emotional as she relives and recalls memories so vivid that the past becomes as alive as the present.

The film also parallels footage from the old film with contemporary footage and shows all the changes, positive and negative, that have occurred in this mystical, faraway location.

 

Perhaps, above all, the film pays homage to the romance, power and consequences of Love: love of a man, love of a culture, love of nature, love of diverse people, love of adventure, spirituality, freedom and, above all, female independence.

 

Have you ever thought‘what would happen if I went back? What would happen if I could do it all over again?

 

Mila's Journey portrays one woman's attempt to answer these questions.