A young tribal filmmaker from Ranchi, now studying cinema in Calcutta, is exploring the untold in onscreen storytelling.
Niranjan Kujur, in his early twenties and a final-year student at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Calcutta, has made a 26-minute film on contemporary tribal youngsters who are torn between their tribe and religion, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.
The film Edpa Kana (Going Home) has been accepted for the competitive section of the 8th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, to be held between June 26 and 30.
In it, a young Oraon non-Christian man, Ashok Bhagat, loves an Oraon Christian girl, but his family wants him to marry a non-Christian girl of the same tribe.
The differences between Christians and non-Christians of the same tribe is a topic seldom explored in cinema. Its sensitive nature - the origin of religious difference lies in conversion - makes filmmakers wary.
But, Kujur showed courage to craft an honest yet engaging film, deftly delineating differences in tribal Christian and Sarna cultures. It's a love story with a heart and an open mind.
And, it has the insider's touch. Characters speak Kurukh, the language Oraons use, interspersed with Sadri and Hindi. Ashok's village home, where he finds his parents have fixed his marriage with a girl from a family that practises Sarna religion like his, is rich in detail. The city-based hero's dilemma - the fact that his girlfriend is Oraon but Christian and so wouldn't be accepted by his community, which confuses him - comes across naturally.
" Edpa Kana depicts what we keep hearing all around us," Kujur, a Sarna boy himself, said about his 26-minute film, which he made as a part of his final-year project at SRFTI.
Wrapping up his shoot in Dhanbad, Durgapur and Calcutta in 11 days flat around last Christmas on a Rs 10-lakh budget allotted by his institute, Kujur roped in his classmates as his crew and relatives and family friends as cast.
"I got my brother Ashok to play the protagonist. You can say I've made him a film star," Kujur, an alumnus of Bishop Westcott Boys' School, Namkum, and DAV Public School, Hehal, quipped.
"I wrote the screenplay and directed. All my friends - Naresh K. Rana who handled the camera, Moumita Roy who recorded sound, Anirudh Singh who composed music and Annapurna Basu who edited the film - did a fantastic job. My brother apart, other actors Monalisa Kisku, Sumitra Toppo, Mahadeo Toppo, Hari Oraon and Sanjay Surin are people who are close to me."
Edpa Kana is Kujur's third film. He earlier made a gripping 11-minute Pahada (multiplication tables), on a child learning tables in a rebel-hit village, and Mother, a Chinese film in collaboration with film students in Taiwan.
"Going by topics he chooses, Kujur looks very promising. He is a bright young director," said Ranchi-based National Award-winning documentary film-maker Sriprakash.
Which tribal issues urgently need to be made into films? Tell ttkhand@abpmail.com
