People watch a Santhali film at Michael John auditorium. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, April 13: A Santhali film on inter-community love opened to mixed reviews at the Michael John Auditorium in Bistupur today.

Sita Nala Re Sagun Supari explores the concept of a boy and girl falling in love from two communities prohibited from marrying under Santhali law.

Hundreds of people flocked the opening of the two and a half hour film directed by Dashrath Hansda.

Chief guest JMM leader and Union coal minister Shibu Soren said he had an ?immense bonding with tribal culture and customs?.

The film is about a failed love affair between Sagun from the Kisku community and Supari from the Mardi community, who fall in love at Kita Nala in the Ramgarh area of Hazaribagh district.

Kita Nala has a special significance in Santhali culture.

Santhal intellectuals said it was in Kita Nala that tribal elders worked for 12 days and 12 nights to frame the laws and customs of society.

These laws prevented people from the Kisku and Mardi communities from marrying.

?The last scene shows Sagu and Supari jumping into Kita Nala, as society prevents them from falling in love because they are from different clans,? said Hansda.

The director said that it is now up to Santhal society whether to follow traditional customs.

Handsa hopes that the film will result in debates as the recent issue over women entering places of worship has done.

The crowd had mixed reactions to the premiere.

Those of the younger generation felt that suicide was not the answer.

?Sagun and Supara shouldn?t have died. They should have eloped and got married,? said a tribal woman at the show.

Older members at the film felt differently.

?Society must have come up with these laws keeping in mind many factors,? said an audience.

Sita Nala Re Sagun Supari has been shot at locations throughout the state including Ghatshila, Moosabani, Chandil dam, Ramgarh, Hazaribagh and Lalpania.

The songs and romantic sequences were filmed in places such as Bhubaneswar and Konark.

Hansda expects that the film will be released for public viewing in Shyam Talkies in the city and other theatres across the state.