A film from Tripura in the Kokborok dialect is making its presence felt at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here with its theme of superstition, witchcraft and women.
"Mathia" (The Bangle), only the second film in Kokborok, is made by 38-year-old Joseph Pulinthanath, a priest by vocation, who says he has had no real formal training except for some "media education" in Delhi and Pune.
"Our response at the film festival was much more than we expected," says the director modestly.
The film on "superstitious practices" of witch-hunts was part of IFFI's Indian Panorama. "Witch-hunts are a very serious problem. In the past few months, we've had 36 cases," says Pulinthanath.
Through his 132-minute feature film, Pulinthanath tells the story of a village called Hathai Para where people are unable to decide whether a young woman -Kwchwngti -- is a witch or not.
The issue clearly strikes a chord. The film's main star Meena Debbarma talks of how her aunt was killed after being labelled a witch.
"We're not trying to bring about reform. We are not trying to impose (another) value system. It is for the community to liberate itself," says Pulinthanath.
Made on a budget of Rs. 2.7 million, the film was co-sponsored by the Tripura government which contributed Rs. 200,000 towards its making.
Pulinthanath's team, part of the Don Bosco Centre's Sampari Pictures, says its is a non-commercial film.
Cinematographer Sunil Lucas explains the movie was shot entirely in DV-cam (digital video camera) mode and not in celluloid to keep costs down. It was later converted into 35mm at Hyderabad.
"We didn't have the money to make it in celluloid. The entire film was shot on a single camera. We edited it on a simple (computer-based) platform, using Adobe 6. It's a reasonably simple film. To have it as part of the Indian Panorama section was a big morale booster," says Lucas.
Shooting the film meant 45 days of long treks -- one of three hours through a river -- with six tonnes of equipment loaded on eight buffalo-carts and fighting rain on difficult terrain.
The name Kokborok comes from two words, kok which means language and borok which means man. Thus, Kokborok means "the language of man" or "the language of the Borok people".
There is a community of Kokborok speaking people in neighbouring Bangladesh.
--Indo-Asian News Service