Nupur Basu speaking at the inaugural programme of IAWRT
travelling films festival at CEMA in Kohima on Friday. (EM image)
KOHIMA — A
two-day International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT)
travelling film festival, presented by the Film Association of Nagaland got
underway at Centre of Excellence for Music and Arts (CEMA) in Kohima on Friday.
A total of 14 films of varied themes will be screened. IAWRT
is an international organisation with about 500 memberships and had held its
20th Asian Women's Film Festival this year in March, showing the works of just
women directors.
Speaking during the inaugural, Nupur Basu, an independent
journalist and award winning documentary filmmaker, said the importance of
having the film festivals and making those documentaries was because the space
for telling unbiased and unfiltered news in the mainstream media has
“vanished.”
Basu, who worked for 35 years in the mainstream media, said,
“News was supposed to be unfiltered and unbiased. But people are sitting in the
studio and talking about opinion and nobody is going to the ground. Conversely,
a documentary filmmaker cannot make a film without going to the spot and on the
ground.”
She believed that Nagaland is a "host of stories"
and expressed hope the people would pursue documentary films.
“There are so many stories in Nagaland—the people's
struggles, the women's struggles —every region in this country have stories to
tell,” Basu said.
She urged the people to get into independent film-making and
bring in real news so that everybody gets to see what's happening in Nagaland.
“We are a huge country and sometimes we don't know anything
about each other, and we need to correct that, and also you need to tell your
story to the world,” the filmmaker added.
She felt that there are so many regions in the country
including the northeast and south, which is under-reported.
“If it rains in Delhi, it comes in the channels. But all
sorts of things will happen in south and in northeast and other regions, which
will not find place,” Basu noted and vouched for having independent news outlets.
Yapangnaro Longkumer, an independent documentary filmmaker
from Nagaland and president of FAN, said the filmmaker community in Nagaland is
trying to create cinema culture where people talked about new ideas and sparks
dialogue. She added that most of the documentary filmmakers in Nagaland are
women.
She informed that Nagaland has not sent a full length
feature film to festivals till date and added that there is still a long way to
go in catching up with others states.
Yapangnaro Longkumer speaking at the inaugural of IAWRT
travelling films festival at CEMA, in Kohima (EM image)
She, however, informed that they are all working on it to
better their craft.
The second day would feature six films and documentaries
including 'Velvet Revolution' directed by Nupur Basu, 'A terrible beauty' by
Iram Ghufran, 'Cinema Pe Cinema' by Vani Subramanian, 'The sharp edge of peace'
by Roya Sadat, 'Umbro' by Prachee Bajania and 'Chimera-The lucid reverie'
directed by Aiswarya Thankachan.
