Skip to content Skip to navigation

Tripura film bags first National Film Award

By editor |

Internationally acclaimed Kokborok film YARWNG (Roots) won the first national film award for Tripura at 56th National Film Awards (2008) held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, 19 March, 2010. The President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil handed over the medal and certificate to Don Bosco priests Joseph Kizhakechennadu (producer) and Fr. Joseph Pulinthanath (director) for their second feature film.


Pulinthanath dressed in white cassock and Kizhakechennadu in his preferred saffron lungi and half-sleeved white kurta were among 52 film award winners of 2008, including high-profile Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra and the doyen of Indian Cinematography V.K. Murthy who was awarded country’s highest honor in cinema - the Dada Saheb Phalke Award.


Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Ambika Soni and Dr. S. Jagathrakshakan, Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, and other officials accompanied the President.


Accent on People’s Cinema


The award winning 95 minute film Yarwng (Roots) tells the story of large-scale displacement of tribal people that took place in the tiny Northeastern state when a hydel project was set up there in the late 1970s. Yarwng was the opening film at the prestigious Indian Panorama section of the 39th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Panaji, Goa, November 2008.


According to the filmmakers, the script of Yarwng emerged from the numerous encounters they held with displaced people in the sanctity of their ramshackle homes. “All the incidents and emotional turmoil we see in the film were etched in the subconscious psyche of the people. All we did was to get close to them and feel their stories as they recalled them with looks, sighs, tears and also words,” recalled the priest director and winner of national and international awards.


“Although the technical team came from Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) and the support team from Guwahati (Assam), the best part of the production was the involvement of the local people,” says producer Kizhakechennadu who claims cinematic traditions from his legendary relative John Abraham, a genius in Malayalam cinema and founder of a people's cinema movement called Odessa.


All the artistes and production hands were from Tripura state including noted actors Meena Debbarma who plays the lead role of Karmati, Amulya Ratan Jamatia, Nirmal Jamatia and Surabhi Debbarma.


Yarwng has traveled throughout India and has been screened in major cities around the world including New York, Brisbane, Moscow, Taipei, Stuttgart and Dhaka.


Yarwng also won a Special Jury Mention Award at the 3rd Eye Asian film festival held in Mumbai in 2008.


The film, part-financed by Church organizations – Missio Germany, Signis and the Salesian Congregation is also a compelling testament to the commitment of the Church and the Don Bosco Society to preservation of local, indigenous cultures and people.


C.M. Paul, New Delhi

Comments

KOUSHIK HAZARIKA's picture

Submitted by KOUSHIK HAZARIKA on Sat, 27/03/2010 - 07:06
In the year of the brilliant Samson and Delilah, BIFF will bring a stream of films by or about Indigenous people, called Colourise films. These include The Inheritors, which documents rural Mexico, capturing the dignity and humanity of people in the face of incredible exploitation. Both Roots and Birdwatchers tell a universal story of displacement from land and culture.

Pages

Add new comment

Other Contents by Author

In Assam, Power Maddens

It is amusing to see note that Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma thinks that the NDFB has hoisted Pakistani flag in Udalguri. I hope he knows that as soon as this act was done, the flag hoisting was reported in Pakistani media. This proves that the Muslim terrorists have an organised network from Assam to Pakistan. And the ministers of Assam are always there to cover up their crimes because of vote-bank politics. No one should dare to blame the native tribals. Our Bodo brothers have not set up villge after village in Bangladesh. It is the Bangladehis who have swarmed all our forests and fields. The state govt as well as the central govt should very well know that. The govt wants to blame...

Golaghat town wears a fresh look as AGP foundation Day on Oct 14

The Opposition Asom Gana Parishad is nearing its preparation to hold the foundation day function at Golaghat town salted for October 14.The entire town is getting a fresh look as the party heavyweights are monitor the preparations to hold the party’s foundation day where its breakaway factions AGP(P), Trinamool Gana Parishad and PLP will be announcing the much-touted unification of regional forces.Senior party leaders say the Bhrigu Phukan Memorial Khsyetra is ready to host the main function and that preparations are almost completed.Postering and hoardings are in sight in the town and its adjacent areas. According to party leaders the unification will give the party a fresh lease of...

Pak flag in Udalguri: Gogoi wants to go for CBI probe

The Assam government will go for a CBI probe into hoisting of a 'Pakistan flag' in clash-hit Udalguri district.Talking to reporters on Saturday in Dispur, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said, “I would go for a CBI inquiry as they have the resources to find out the real culprits, whom we can punish and also educate the people not to be influenced by them.”He said CID will also investigate so as to immediately know who were responsible for the violence as the CBI would take sometime for the probe.According to the Chief Minister, "a judicial probe, already on, will unearth the conspiracy behind the clashes and hoisting of the flag.”Meanwhile, the Assam government spokesman Dr...

Major blast averted in the city

A major blast has been averted in the city when police recovered two live bomb on Sunday morning. According to information, police recovered two live bombs at Bhagaduttapur in Kahilipara area in the ciy of Guwahati. Two people have so far been arrested in this connection.

Sonia rushes team to visit Udalguri, Darrang

Congress president Sonia Gandhi has rushed a three member team to the violence-hit Udalguri and Darrang distircts where 62 people were killed, over 200 injured and hundreds of houses have been set on fire.According to information, the three member committee headed by former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Mukut Mithi, Shaqeel Ahmed and Malda MP AH Khan is visiting the riot hit areas and its relief camps. The team is expected to submit its report before Gandhi by October 15.On the other hand, Army's western Assam zone general officer command of 4 Corps Lt general V K Singh is also visiting these areas on Saturday to take stock of the situation. This will be followed the visit of Union...

Ahmed submits report to PM on Assam violence

Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed has submitted his report on the communal clashes in lower Assam’s Darrang and Udalguri districts where 62 people have been killed, several villages have been torched and over one lakh have been rendered homeless in a week. Mr Ahamed has accused the Opposition BJP and communal outfits of creating a divide between the two communities in Assam. He understood to have told Prime Minister Dr Manomhan Singh that there was an urgent need of measures for confidence building between Muslims and Bodos.It may be recalled that accompanied by two Ministers of Assam Dr Nazrul Islam and Rihon Doimari, the Minister visited three relief camps on Wednesday...

Gogoi orders judicial probe into communal clashes

The Assam government has ordered a judicial probe into the ethnic violence in Darrang and Udalguri districts that has claimed 62 lives even as normalcy is back to these areas.During his visit on Thursday, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi announced the judicial probe and that the government will soon come out with a master plan to rehabilitate the riot hot people. He further announced a compensation of Rs 3 lakh each to the next of those killed in the clash. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who visited the affected areas in the two districts, said there were allegations against some police officers that they had failed to contain the violence for which action would be taken against them if found guilty...

The Wrath Of God

The wrath of gods seems to be descending on the religious Indian masses with perilious frequency as stampedes at pilgrimages kill more people (361 in 2008 alone, and 875 in the last ten years) than even bomb blasts. The latest in this series was the early morning stampede this month on the first day of Navratra (the nine days religious festivity celebrated all over India) outside the Chamunda Devi Temple on a hillock adjoining Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur . As a 10,000 strong crowd of devotees surged forward in the wee hours of 1 October 2008, a barricade broke and some men lost their balance on the slopy terrain, made slippery by the flowing coconut waters. The resulting mayhem left 150...

Gogoi visits Darrang, Udalguri to pave the way for normalcy

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday visited the violence-hit areas of Udalguri and Darrang districts in where at least 62 people were killed, hundreds of houses torched and over one lakh people have been rendered homeless.The Chief Minister visited the Bhakatpara and Bechimari camps, where more than 10,000 people have taken shelter. Normalcy returns to these areas and curfew had been withdrawn from most parts of the affected districts.However, both indigenous people and immigrant settlers were still maintaining night vigil as the villagers were trying to rebuild their lives as more than 120 houses had been torched with majority of the victims were indigenous people.

8 injured in blast near Guwahati puja function

Despite an elaborate security arrangement, a minor blast rocked Japorijog area in Guwahati on Thursday evening near a puja pandal leaving 8 persons injured. According to information, the incident took place some distance away from the Assam State Zoo in Guwahati. After preliminary treatment, they have been released from the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital. Police said it’s a handmade bomb and the injuries are minor. Later Police cordoned off the area near the blast site nut no one has been picked up.. Police are yet to ascertain the nature and cause of the blast, as it occurred on a sand heap near a puja mandap. Due to the low intensity nature of the blast, not many people were...