Why celebrating Indian indigenous films is important, and how it is a doorway into unique cultures

A still from Thanthapperu. Pics Courtesy/IFFM; YouTube

What did you hope these films would reveal beyond their more mainstream representations?
Meenakshi Shedde (MS): I SPECIALLY curated these films to highlight ‘narrative sovereignty,' the right of Indigenous people to tell their own stories in their own voices. What is remarkable about the films is that not only do they offer audiences a window into diverse Indigenous communities across India, but despite minimal resources, their storytelling is accomplished, and universal.

A still from the trailer of Theja Rio's film, Remains

For instance, Theja Rio - Remains and Ade-On A Sunday - is a Naga filmmaker from the Angami tribe from Kohima, Nagaland. His debut feature Angh is also selected in the Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF's Platform Competition, and the Platform winner is automatically eligible for the Academy Award for Best International Feature. All of these fantastic achievements might be a revelation to those who might mistakenly assume an Indigenous/Adivasi/tribal is merely someone in a loincloth with bows and arrows.

Meenakshi Shedde

Several of the films are made in Gondi, Karbi, Tenyidie and Cholanaikka, languages that average Indians are unfamiliar with. How does a curator approach such a unique experience?
MS: As a curator, I wanted to present the best Indigenous films, and showcase diverse subjects and languages across India. So, the seven films addressed diverse contemporary issues of identity, tradition, post-colonialism, violent separatism and climate change. There's Nihaarika Negi's Tenfa (Kinnauri, Himachal, Western Himalayas), KS Unnikrishnan Avala's Thanthapperu, Life of a Phallus, is in Cholanaikka in Kerala, and three films are from the North East - Khanjan Kishore Nath's Kangbo Aloti, The Lost Path, in Karbi, and Dr Pankaj Borah's Noi Kotha (River Tales) and Maharshi Tuhin Kashyap's experimental documentary short, Flowers in a Hailstorm, in Assamese. I'm also alert about the politics of representation, so I included one film by an ‘Indigenous ally' - Avala's Thanthapperu - because it is jaw-dropping-good, and the first film in Cholanaikka, spoken among Asia's last cave-dwellers from Kerala.

Why is it critical to view these films in their original languages, rather than as examples of ‘regional' cinema?
MS: To be honest, I had not heard of the Tenyidie or Cholanaikka languages till I curated this programme. India makes films in 55 languages and dialects, more than all the film languages of the entire European Union - in a single country. It's an embarras de richesses (embarrassment of riches).

Did you know?

With a population less than 200, the Cholanaikkans who inhabit Kerala's Nilambur forests still have an indigenous practice of tracking time through stars, and the monsoon through frog calls.

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