Shillong, February 01: My name is Eeooow, a film made in Kongthong village, East khasi hills Meghalaya directed by award winning filmmaker Oinam Doren will have its world premiere at the 15th RAI Film Festival which will take place at Watershed in Bristol (UK), from 29 March to 1 April 2017. The film has also been nominated for the ‘tangible culture’ prize according to a source from the festival organizers.
Kongthong is a quaint little village about 60 Km away from Shillong. The inhabitants there practices a unique tradition called the Jyngwrai Iawbei. The Jyngwrai Iawbei is the practice of having musical tunes as names in honor of the clan ancestress. The song names come as an expression of the mother’s love for her new born. The film follows the families of two married sisters; Shidiap Khongsit and Shithoh Khongsit whose children has to stay in Shillong for higher studies as the village school has provision for only up to class seven.
The sisters’ families depend mostly on broom and betel cultivation as a source of income. Two years back, a rocky road reached Kongthong village making trading and connectivity to Shillong easier. But as the kids leave the village one by one for higher studies, the filmmaker tries to question what happens to the Jyngwrai Iawbei, the eternal symbol of mother’s love.
Beautifully shot augmented with melodious music by khasi folk singer Bah Kerios Wahlang, the filmmaker Doren pays rich tribute to Meghalaya’s beautiful landscape and the young khasi boys, the inheritance of its rich culture.
Shillong based actor/ photographer Baia Marbaniang whose new film Shor-se-suruaat as lead actress was released in Mumbai recently haveworked in the film as assistant director while filmmaker and musician Wanphrang Diengdoh has edited the film. The two of them along with the director Oinam Doren happens to be alumni of the St. Anthony’s college Mass Communication department.
According to Rothel Khongsit, a young dynamic community leader of Kongthong village, journalists and scholars have been thronging the village lured by this unique naming tradition. And a film will definitely help promote tourism in the village. Two cottage guest house are already being run by the Indigenous Agro Tourism Cooperation Society of the village which has hosted a number of tourist from foreign countries. Identifying other tourist spots of the area and
improving the road conditions will further boost the tourism economy of Kongthong village.
