Northeast filmmaking: an underrated art requiring more reach

“Regional films have less reach as the theme it carries caters to a limited number of people. Be it the story, the place it is located, the medium of language shot in and of course the culture and the tradition it carries,” says Lopsang Dinchen Lama, a Northeastern independent filmmaker, as he answers the reason behind regional filmmakers being neglected and less prioritised over big-budget films. Similarly, in the article by The Indian Express, it is mentioned how in the north eastern states, the filmmakers have to compete with the ‘multiplexes’ screening various Hindi, English movies, since only a limited number of theatres allow the screening for native language films. Likewise even Hemant Chakma, an Assamese filmmaker mentions how the north eastern filmmakers don’t have enough money to promote and advertise the films and this effect a lot to not reach there and not having enough theatre. Language and lack of theatres are again not the only problem, restrictions such as lack of funds and poor patronage also contribute to the reasons why Northeastern films and filmmakers are overlooked. Likewise, even Chakma mentions how the north eastern filmmakers don’t have enough money to promote and advertise the films. Negacy Angom, an aspiring filmmaker, says “This is due to the lack of publicity by the mainstream media, conditioned from years of negligence.”

In the same article by the Indian Express, Rima Das, an indie Assamese filmmaker, has mentioned that the way to bridge this gap between the audience and the Northeast film/filmmakers is by “getting regional films dubbed well and released to make it more accessible to a wider audience”. Other ways that would help are by putting out regional films at “film festivals, OTT platforms or even websites facilitating a paid experience of an indie film.” says Vidisha, a film student. She even gives examples of a few famous indie filmmakers like Rima Das, Ronnie Sen, Chaitanya Tamanhe who have created an impact in Film Festivals all over the world with their films. And during the pandemic, since the cinema halls had to be shut down, several new OTT platforms have come into existence, therefore, giving the regional filmmakers a larger space to put up their work and in the process, to connect with a wider audience.

Yet the problem still remains, as mentioned in the article by Federal, “Though many filmmakers globally have started to make content exclusively targeting OTT platforms, the practice is far from reality in the north-eastern part of the country.”

What could be the reason behind it?

Illustration by Sampandi Lama

“OTT platforms tend to choose and cater to their audience and choose what’s working best for them which is why there isn't much regional language content,” says Negacy. Undoubtedly the OTT platforms have helped the filmmakers by creating a space to represent themselves and their work but these platforms have their own conditions and considerations while choosing films. Yet, Vidisha has a different opinion. She mentions how most regional films cannot satisfy the criteria and production values of the OTT platforms due to the limited budget that they have. “It may seem like they are biased towards people for whom it is more accessible. But, this isn’t the case. Either the filmmaker can approach bigger production houses and get a rise in their production value, or showcase their films in some film festivals, or pitch it in several crowdfunding markets.” She also states that “Regional biases do not exist so widely.”

If we talk about short filmmaking, the situation is even worse. There are less than five proper articles that can be found on the internet which talk about short filmmaking in the Northeast.

“As for buyers, a majority of the people have been drugged by the typical Bollywood masala entertainment and they tend to crave for that rather than topics of concern. Thus, films like this……..hardly see the light of the day” says Negacy. While Hemant thinks that the reason behind it is because northeastern films have low exposure as the northeast filmmaking industry is “not so big.” Undeniably since past years, the stature of short filmmaking is definitely growing, as mentioned in the article by MIG- “Short films are used to raise questions and consider ideas on social issues and may come across as minor in terms of scale, but are enormous on ideas.” However, reach plays a major problem for short films as they are very difficult to look for unless screened on a certain platform or film festivals. On top of it, being a Northeastern short filmmaker, the restraints just get doubled. As for Negacy, the major difficulty while working on a short film was “not being able to gain the mass for the product created as there is no popularity given to the land or the language in terms of art and filmmaking despite being very rich and raw in it.”, while for Lopsang Dinchen since he has been involved in making independent documentaries of the local traditions, the difficulties he faced were “getting a proper and authentic source of information. Many of the sources are oral histories and myths and these get contaminated with time.” Lastly, for Hemant, the most challenging thing is to find a story or to write a story, and for both to create into a script he says one needs to put lots of effort and time into the research on the subject as well the theme of the story.

Nonetheless, there are Northeastern short films that have been screened, nominated, and have even won at the National and International film festivals like the film Xogun by national award-winning filmmaker Utpal Borpujari and The Man Who Speaks Nature by Assamese filmmaker Dhritiman Kakati which bagged the Best Short Film Award at the Festival International Nature Namur in Belgium 2019. Therefore the situations are changing, online platforms like ABC talkies are providing large digital film libraries in the world for OTTs to come and buy what they want directly from the filmmaker without any intervention to build a space where regional filmmakers are not only free to showcase and monetize their work, but also have the opportunity to sell it to bigger platforms.