Manipur News

GUWAHATI, Sept 5 NNN : After having had recognised his works in England and the United States, the film maker of the Assam’s Mayong legendary magic is now focussing in Nagaland and Manipur and other parts of the North East region.
Utpal Borpujari informed today that he will make a film on Naga folk music and also a film on the battle fields in Manipur and Nagaland during World War II.
Presently, Borpujari is making a documentary film for the Rajya Sabha TV on a football coach who spent his money to teach football to poor village girls in Assam.
It can be noted here that the story of Mayong’s legendary magic will now travel to the United States.
Mayong, also known as the Land of Black Magic, is situated in Marigaon district of Assam.
“Mayong: Myth/Reality”, a documentary directed by Utpal Borpujari and produced by Jayanta Goswami under the banner of Darpan Cine Production, has been selected for screening at the Silent River Film Festival to be held in California (USA) in October.
Informing Newmai News Network over phone from New Delhi few days ago, Utpal Borpujari expressed his happiness and had said, “Definitely, it is an encouraging news that a film from the North East is travelling to the United States of America. With this, more and more stories of the North East India region and about its people can be told.”
The documentary, which makes a first-time effort to capture the story of Mayong in film, is among the 79 films chosen from all over the world for screening at the festival that will happen at Irvine in California from October 17 to 20.
The film, which has earlier been screened at the 6th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, 5th CineASA Guwahati International Film Festival and the Indie8 Film Festival in Shillong, has already been archived by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Britain and Ireland, as reported earlier. It will also be screened at the Gandhinagar International Film Festival soon.
The other films from India that will be screened at the Silent River Film Festival are Vikramaditya Motwane’s Hindi feature film “Lootera”, Sourav Sarangi’s documentary “Char – The No Man’s Island”, and short films “Lapet” by Anshul Sinha and “Afterglow” by Kaushal Oza.
Incidentally, the DVD of “Mayong: Myth / Reality” will soon be released nationally by Junglee Home Video, the DVD label of Times Music.
“Mayong: Myth/Reality”, has also been archived by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) of Great Britain and Ireland so that researchers and academicians associated with cultural ethnography studies can access the documentary.
The film, which was screened few months ago at the 5th CineASA Guwahati International Film Festival and the India International Centre, New Delhi, had also been selected for the Long Documentary (Non-Competitive) Section of the 6th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) held in Thiruvananthapuram in June and the Gandhinagar International Film Festival to be held in the Gujarat capital this month.
The RAI’s ethnographic film library, which the film will be a part of, is one of the world’s largest and most important such archives.
“All films included in the library are screened by the specialist Film Committee, guaranteeing a standard of excellence unparalleled elsewhere. Growing numbers of film company researchers and broadcasters now consult the RAI film materials,” according to the RAI’s description of the archive.The RAI is the world’s longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology in its broadest and most inclusive sense. It seeks to combine a distinguished tradition of scholarship stretching back over more than 150 years with the active provision of services to contemporary anthropology and anthropologists.
The institute is strongly involved in promoting the public understanding of anthropology, and the contribution of anthropology to public affairs, and has a privileged link with the Anthropology Library of the British Museum.

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