Nagaland: Cinema
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Revision as of 21:16, 3 January 2015
The only resources on Nagamese cinema are the excellent Facebook |
Nagamese, the language
The people of Nagaland belong to different tribes and speak around 20 languages that can be clubbed into sixteen linguistic groups. That’s right, these are languages, not dialects. Each language is different from the other. Therefore, the Nagas either talk to each other in English—which the majority of Nagas know—or in Nagamese,
A nascent film industry
Unlike Assam, Manipur and even Mizoram, Nagaland does not have a major film industry, partly because it does not have much of an audience for locally made films. One reason for this is that the people of Nagaland are divided into around sixteen linguistic groups—with Nagamese, a modern hybrid language, stepping in as a link language.
Nagamese belongs to no one. For the Nagas Nagamese is a link language, not a language to do any literary work in.An Ao will compose songs in the Ao language. The state’s most popular pop group, the Tetseo Sisters sing in Chokri.
Songs don’t cost a fortune to compose; films do. You can write songs for a small audience. But no Naga language has enough speakers to sustain a film industry.
Therefore, most educated Nagas:
i) do not believe that Nagamese is a language fit for literature or any serious communication, including cinema (but that their own mother tongue and/ or English is).
ii) have never seen a film made in Nagaland. Very few educated Nagas can name an actor or director working in Nagaland’s films.
iii) make fun of the few films that have been made in Nagaland. They say, ‘We only watch Nagamese films to make fun of them.’ When "O Suko Pani Kile Giri Ase" was released in Nov 2008 at Hotel Saramati, Dimapur, some speakers at the premiere urged Nagas to acclaim the efforts put in by the pioneers instead of making fun of them.
iv) feel that the existing crop of films made in Nagaland are ‘insulting the Naga name,’ as Nagaland's main filmmaker Mehara has often been told about his films. Mehara told Morung Express that he has even received threats asking him to stop making films.
Against this background, as Morung Express points out, ‘One man’s dream keeps alive the Nagamese film industry.’ (The Nagaland film industry, actually, because he has made films in other Naga languages, too.) That man is Ajay Kumar Mehara, about whom more later on this page.
