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A History of India''s North-East Cinema: Deconstructing the Stereotypes , the first book on the history of cinema in this region, depicts the journey from the first Assamese film, Joymoti (1935), to the present time. This book addresses the peripheral status and identity crisis of North-Eastern people in mainland India, a region that comprises eight states, and examines the role of Bollywood in the construction and misrepresentation of this region in popular Hindi cinema. The book is divided into three parts. Part I looks at how the people of the North-East are constructed as ''foreigners'' or ''outsiders'' by mainland Indians, due to their physical facial features. Part II discusses the socio-political and cultural shifts in the region of Assam, the issue of Assamese identity which led to the Assam Movement and the upsurge of the insurgent group United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). It provides a nuanced discussion on the background and foreground of the first and second Assamese films, Joymoti (1935) and Indramalati (1939). Part III traces the journey of cinema in the seven other North-Eastern states-Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Sikkim, narrating the regions'' socio-political phenomena and the unique cultural discourses. For instance, one of the chapters examines the turbulent period beginning with the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and its impact on the growth of cinema in the region. The book contains a rare collection of film posters, newspaper advertisements, photographs, letters and other documents, representing both the public and private domain of film-making.
List of contents
List of illustrationsList of abbreviationsOverviewProloguePart IIntroduction: North-East Cinema: Not a Monolithic Entity
1. Representation of North-East in Bollywood: Myth and Reality
2. North-East Cinema: Beyond Bollywood
Part II3. Society, Culture and Cinema in Assam
4. Father of North-East Cinema: Jyotiprasad Agarwala
5. Birth of
Joymoti: The Backstory
6.
Joymoti: The First Feature Film from the North-East
7.
Indramalati: A Romantic Saga with Patriotic Undertones
8. Assamese Cinema: From Regional to Epic Rise
9. The Diverse Cultural Mosaic of Assam in Films
10. Pramathesh Chandra Barua: A Filmmaker with a National Context
Part III11. AFSPA and Cinema of Manipur
12. Aribam Syam Sharma: The Pabung of New Manipuri Cinema
13. Voices from the Blue Hills: Cinema of Meghalaya
14. The Land of Rising Sun: The Cinema of Arunachal Pradesh
15. The Song Bird of the East: Cinema of Mizoram
16. Cinema of the Naga Hills
17. Search for Identity: The Cinema of Tripura
18. The Fall of a Tiny Himalayan Kingdom: The Cinema of Sikkim
AcknowledgementsPhotographsBibliographyIndex
About the author
Parthajit Baruah is a senior lecturer at Renaissance Junior College, (Assam), India, film historian, and film practitioner. He has authored several academic books on films, including The Cinema of Adoor Gopalakrishnan (2016) and research projects on Assamese cinema at the National Film Archive of India. Baruah has made thirteen documentaries and one fiction feature film (The Nellie Story, 2023) on socio-political issues.
