SHILLONG: A Khasi movie, My Name is Eeooow, will have its world premiere at the 15th RAI Film Festival at Watershed in Bristol (UK) from March 29 to April 1.
The film, directed by Oinam Doren, has also been nominated for the ‘Tangible Culture’ prize, according to festival organisers.
The film revolves around Kongthong, a hamlet in East Khasi Hills about 60km from Shillong, and a traditional practice called the Jyngwrai Iawbei. The tradition is to have musical tunes as names in honour 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. The sisters’ families depend mostly on broom and betel nut cultivation for livelihood.
The film traces how at a time when the children are leaving the village the tradition of Jyngwrai Iawbei is maintained.
My Name is Eeooow has some beautiful shots of the quaint hamlet complete with melodious music by Khasi folk singer Kerios Wahlang. Doren pays rich tribute to Meghalaya’s beautiful landscape and the young Khasi boys, the inheritance of its rich culture.
Shillong-based actor and photographer Baia Marbaniang, who recently worked in a Bollywood project, has worked in the film as assistant director while filmmaker and musician Wanphrang Diengdoh has edited the film.
The two of them, along with Doren, happens to be alumni of the Mass Communications department at St Anthony’s College.
According to Rothel Khongsit, a young dynamic community leader of Kongthong, journalists and scholars have been thronging the village lured by this unique naming tradition. He assures that the film will definitely help promote tourism in the village.
Two cottage guest houses are already being run by the Indigenous Agro Tourism Cooperation Society of the village, which has hosted a number of tourists from foreign countries.
