Borderland Narratives, the three-day Festival of Films from Contemporary Northeast India was inaugurated on March 23 at the RGU campus by lamas of the Thuntan Gatselling Gonpa, Itanagar. 19 filmmakers representing the 8 states in the region have arrived at the festival to share their films and interactions with the audience.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Patron of the Festival and RGU Vice-Chancellor Prof Saket Kushwaha while expressing happiness to be a part of the programme, commended the partnering organizations for the initiative. Elaborating on the role that cinema has on society, he said that films have the real potential for bringing out the ‘post-truth’. “On the one hand, they bring out the practices and the truth from the past and from the existing cultures, and on the other, they also bring out trends to the people and we learn a lot from that”, Prof. Kushwaha said. Citing the example of the cartoon character ‘Popeye the Sailor’, he narrated how a film can be convincing just like the cartoon convinced and encouraged children to eat spinach instead of fast food.
Prof Simon John, Director AITS and Festival Director, while welcoming the filmmakers and other dignitaries said the aim of this festival is to bring the filmmakers from the region together on one platform. ‘We are currently focusing on the film makers and directors of North-East India who are making films of different communities and in engaging new ways.” Prof. Simon added that while “scholars are not filmmakers but we are very interested in audio-visual documentation because we need audio visual document as a supplement for our research.”
@3-day ‘Borderland Narratives’ film fest