History of India’s North-East Cinema : Deconstructing the Stereotypes

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.