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

Assamese Translator

Assam Times seeks English to Assamese translators!
Join our volunteer team.
Email editor@assamtimes.org.

Random Stories

Sankarjayanti in Kokrajhar

6 Oct 2014 - 7:55am | Hantigiri Narzary
Sankar Janmutsav was also celebrated in Kokrajhar along with other parts of the state to mark the birth anniversary of the saint. The Kokrajhar Sankhardev Sangha celebrated the day with four day long...

Interrupted power supply

7 Sep 2015 - 9:48pm | HK Roy
Trees getting uprooted and falling on electrical lines, resulting in hours of power outage is a common phenomenon during monsoon. Normal power supply remains heavily interrupted on the Pasighat-...

Is unification of regional politics in Assam Rectification?

18 Oct 2008 - 1:46am | Nanda Kirati Dewan
Regional Politics of Assam got glorifications when all the factions of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP)-the political platform born out of in famous Assam Movement in late seventies and mid eighties by...

Nagaon celebrated Assam Rajyak Shishu Vikash Samaro

7 Sep 2009 - 5:46am | bishwajeetsinha
The Gram Shishu Vikas Parishad (Assam) in association with Aroha Artist Guild, Guwahati organized a cultural program dedicated to overall development of children at Swahid Bhawan, Nagaon on 6th...

Other Contents by Author

Aaranyak hosts session on ABS

A brainstorming consultation on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) was organised by Aaranyak, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Indian NGOs Forum Conservation of Biological Diversity (INFC) here on August 26 last in collaboration with National Biodiversity Authority (NBA).Aaranyak hosted the session at Indian Institute of Bank Management (IIBM), Guwahati. The timing of this meeting is consciously chosen prior to the international meetings of the CBD that are to be held in India through October 2012. The Government of India for the first time is hosting a Conference of the Parties (COP).In order to facilitate compliance to the Convention, a global forum where governments, non-...

Ulfa blows out Makum oil rig

Atleast 10 people sustained injury when Ulfa blew out an oil rig in Tinsukia on Saturday. Fire tenders took three hours to douse the fire. Meanwhile Ulfa has claimed the responsibility of the attack on OIL-owned rig. The explosion took place at the oil rig based at Chandmari near Makum in the wee hour where local residents came to hear a huge sound.

ULFA claims strike at Makum OIL rig

The United Liberation Front of Asom claimed to have blown off an oil well in Tinsukia district of Assam causing panic among the local residents on Saturday. The incident took place at Chandmari near Makum where the Oil India Limited-owned rig caught fire following a huge sound in the wee hours. No injury or casualty has been been reported so far. According to the OIL authorities, the fire was reported around 1 at midnight. Several fire tenders deployed there took nearly 5 hours to douse the blaze. Later the well was sealed. Initial investigation suggests it an attempt to steal oil from the well. The thieves made a hole in the oil well's high pressure `xmas tree' valve causing hydro carbon...

Money matters in Puja murder

Money mattered in the murder of a 40 year old woman in Guwahati where a teenager boy killed his mother recently. Identified as Ankit Saikia the teenager boy and his friend Ranjit Gaur strangulated his mother Puja Saikia who was a caretaker at a Guwahati based building.

One crushed to death by truck

Tension erupted near Konadhara in Guwahati following the sudden death of a person at a n road accident on Friday. The incident took place in the evening when a person was crushed to death a person by a truck just near Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s official residence. Immediately after it, local residents in large number came out to the street and attacked the truck. Some others blocked the road. The situation was brought under control only after the arrival of police.

Procession in Sivasagar against B’deshi

Sivasagar erupts in a massive move to flush out the Bangladeshi immigrants from the district when over ten thousand people took to the streets on Friday. Led by AASU leaders, cutting across party affiliations, thousands of people spilled to the streets demanding immediate steps to detect and deport the immigrants hiding in the district. Some others gave moral support by standing on the both sides of the road in the town from the Boarding field to AT Road through Hemchandra Baruah Road and Temple Road.

PM concern over BTAD violence

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday expressed grave concern over the simmering communal tension in BTAD areas and called it is a major cause of worry for the entire country. Speaking to mediapersons on board to New Delhi from Tehran, he said that what worried him more was the ethnic clashes in Assam. “When I look at the future of our country, the way things have gone in Assam, the ethnic tensions that have disturbed peace in Assam, that part of Assam which is in Bodoland territorial administration”, he said.

Ban AMSU: Media to government

Sonitpur media fraternity on Friday demanded ban on the All Assam Minority Students Union along with 30 other organisations alleging attack during their statewide bandh on August 28. Led by a group of scribes, over 7000 people took out a procession in Tezpur and submitted a memorandum to Governor and Chief Minister through the district Deputy Commissioner raising the demand. The media people further demanded immediate arrest of those responsible for the attack on the media persons.The journalist organisations included the Sonitpur Journalist Union, Journalist Federation of Assam, Sonitpur District Journalist Association and Sonitpur Press Club.

Implement Assam Accord: Mahanta

Former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta on Friday said that the ethnic clash would not be totally over until and unless the Assam Accord is not implemented in letter and spirit. Talking to reporters during a party procession in Guwahati, Mahanta who leads the regional party said that after 27 years of it being signed on August 15, 1985, the agreement had not yet been implemented. The party leaders demanded immediate steps for detection and deportation of illegal foreigners in accordance with the Assam Accord.

AGP procession to end BTAD violence

The Asom Gana Prishad on Friday demanded Prime Minister's intervention to make an end to the bloodbath bath in BTAD areas and Dhubri. Party leader who took out a procession from Ambari on Friday, submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister through the Kamrup (Metro) district Deputy Commissioner in Guwahati raising the demand.Talking to reporters party president and former Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta blamed it all on the government of failing to efficiently deal with the situation in BTAD. They alleged that Dispur had no plan and strategy to counter the recent violence in the state known for unity in diversity.