‘My name is Eeooow’ bags 2nd international award

Our Bureau

IMPHAL | Sept 3

State filmmaker Oinam Doren’s ‘My name is Eeooow’ has won its second International award at the recently concluded 23rd film festival della Lessinia held in Bosco Chiesanuova in Italy from August 19 to 27. 

The film won the prize from the Curatorium Cimbricum Veronense in memory of Piero Piazzola and Mario Pigozzi for the best film by a young director. Piero Piazzola and Mario Pigozzi are founders of the 23 years old festival. The film is produced by CCRT.

It may be noted that the film already won the ‘Intangible culture prize’ in UK in April this year.  The governor of Meghalaya, Banwarilal Purohit had also arranged for the screening of the film twice in Raj Bhavan, Shillong.

In the two screenings, the filmmaker was felicitated. Further in October, the film will be screened in Estonian national museum in Tartu, Estonia and Rajasthan International folk music festival, Jodhpur.

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 practice a unique tradition called the Jyngwrai Iawbei.

The Jyngwrai Iawbei is the practice of having 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 have 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 and 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.