Guwahati: Assamese filmmaker Mehdi Jahan’s debut feature film, ‘Joymoti Never Left’ (Assamese title: Tumi Najaba, Joymoti), will have its world premiere at one of the most prestigious film festivals, the 53rd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2024 (IFFR 2024).
The daughter of the first Assamese filmmaker, Jyotiprasad Agarwala, Satyashree Agarwala Das, his grand-daughter, Radha Das, and great-grandson, Raghu Pratap, not only star in the film, but they were actively part of the film’s production.
‘Joymoti Never Left’ earned the distinction of being only the second Assamese feature film, after Jahnu Barua’s ‘Hagoroloi Bohu Door’ (‘It’s a long way to the sea’ ) in 1996, to be officially selected for the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
Thus, Mehdi Jahan’s film will be the first Assamese feature film at IFFR in nearly 3 decades. It will be screening in the prestigious ‘Cinema Regained’ section of the festival, which, as the official IFFR site mentions, is “a sphere of collective remembrance and imagination offering restored classics, documentaries on film culture, and explorations of cinema’s heritage”.
‘Joymoti Never Left’ is a remarkable blend of fiction and documentary on the relationship Satyashree Agarwala Das and Radha Das share with the female protagonists of Jyotiprasad Agarwala’s plays and films.
Jyotiprasad Agarwala made the first Assamese film, ‘Joymoti’, in 1935 and was a polymath who left behind an incredible body of work, which includes numerous plays, songs, and poems.
‘Joymoti Never Left’ fuses fiction, fantasy, and documentary elements to create a dreamlike portrait of Jyotiprasad Agarwala through the eyes of Satyashree Agarwala Das, Radha Das, and Raghu Pratap, where the focus is firmly on his much overlooked inventiveness as a filmmaker and staunchly feminist ideals.
As renowned German film critic and curator Olaf Möller states on the official site of IFFR, “past, present, and future become one in this essay on cultural heritage and its various political and spiritual dimensions.”
The official synopsis of the film reads, “In the year 2047, a few years after the whole of Assam was submerged in the Brahmaputra river following a catastrophic flood, an ethnographer discovered a diary amidst the remnants of the capital city of Guwahati. He entrusted the task of studying the diary to a historian due to his inability to comprehend the Assamese language.
“The historian made the discovery that the diary in question belonged to Satyashree Agarwala Das, the daughter of Jyotiprasad Agarwala, who made the first Assamese film, ‘Joymoti’ in 1935. In present-day Guwahati, Satyashree Agarwala Das lives with her daughter, Radha Das, who’s a history professor, and her grandson, Raghu Pratap, who’s an aspiring filmmaker.
“The film delves into the intricate dynamics between Jyotiprasad Agarwala’s daughter, grand-daughter, and great-grandson, exploring their relationship with him, their associations with the female protagonists featured in his films and plays, their dreams, memories, and cinema.”
‘Joymoti Never Left’ is produced, directed, shot, and co-edited by Mehdi Jahan. The film is co-edited by filmmaker and editor Duttatreya. The sound design and mix are done by Kolkata based experimental musician and sound artist, Sourav Biswas.
Samiran Sonowal is the digital colorist. Promising young Assamese filmmaker Tridisha Goswami stars in a double role where she plays Joymoti and a historian from the future.
Raghu Pratap, who’s a cinephile, writer, and amateur filmmaker, stars in a triple role, where he plays himself, an ethnographer from the future, and the young Jyotiprasad Agarwala.
Popular Assamese singer, musician, and actor Arghadeep Barua stars in the film as the narrator.
Arghadeep Barua and Tridisha Goswami perform the songs in the movie. The original music is composed by Rahul Rabha and Niladri Shekhar Roy.