National award winning filmmaker Oinam Doren’s new film ‘My name is Eeooow’ has been nominated for the ‘Tangible Culture Prize’ at the 15th RAI Film Festival which will take place at Watershed in Bristol (UK), from 29 March to 1 April 2017. The film will also have its world premiere at the festival.
The film is set in Kongthong village, East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya. 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 nuts 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.
