Sajan Nayak and Smilie Baruah in a scene from Praner Piya

Jorhat, July 22: Tea estate workers used to standard Bollywood fare at the open-air film shows on Saturday evenings will soon see reel action they can identify with.

Jorhat-based Politrex Films has just completed the first full-length feature film that focuses entirely on the tea tribes. The Assam Tea Tribes Students’ Association wants the film, Praner Priya, to be screened in every tea garden.

The 1975 Assamese blockbuster Chameli Memsaab was the first film with a tea garden worker as the main protagonist, but Praner Priya promises to go beyond that. “The tea community is still trapped in a web of superstitious beliefs. Apart from entertaining, our aim is to do away with these beliefs,” Jayanta Borkotoky, who produced the film, said.

Directed by Kishor Baruah, Praner Priya will be released within a week and screened in the tea gardens using the LCD digital projection system.

Almost all the actors, including the male lead Sajan Nayak, are from the tea tribes. The language is the one spoken in the gardens.

Manik Rao, a tea garden labourer from Mariani, has lent his voice to the songs of Praner Piya. Politrex Films, which is a subsidiary of the top music label N.K. Production, previously produced the Assamese film titled Maya.

Praner Priya is essentially a love story and shows how bad habits and superstition become hurdles in the way of the lovers. The film was shot at Ducklongia and Numaligarh tea estates of Upper Assam. “Bookings for the film have begun already. Several tea gardens of Upper Assam have enquired about the film,” Borkotoky said.

Asked what inspired N.K. Production to make a film on the tea community, the producer said the challenge of going beyond what was depicted in Chameli Memsaab was worth taking up. “The good and bad aspects of the community needed to be highlighted. We believe the film will make the tea community feel they are a part of the greater Assamese society, just like the Bodos, Karbis and Misings.”