Joymoti (1935)

Joymoti or Joimoti (Assamese: জয়মতী), released on 10 March 1935, was the first Assamese film made. Based on Lakshminath Bezbaroa's play about the 17th-century Ahom princess Soti Joymoti, the film was produced and directed by the noted Assamese poet, author, and film-maker Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, and starred Aideu Handique and acclaimed stage actor and playwright Phani Sarma. The film, shot between 1933 and 1935, was released by Chitralekha Movietone in 1935 and marked the beginning of Assamese cinema.

Joymoti was screened at the 50th International Conference of the Society For Cinema and Media Studies (SCMC) of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in March 2011.

Other screenings include:


India-Bangladesh Joint Celebration of 100 Years of Indian Cinema, Dhaka (2012)
UCLA's Centre for India and South Asia Studies, Los Angeles (April 2010)
Osian-Cinefan's 10th Film Festival of Asian and Arabic Cinema, New Delhi (2008)
Filmbüro Baden Württemberg's Internationales Indisches Filmfestival, Stuttgart (2006)
Asiaticafilmidale (Encounters with Asian Cinema), Rome (2006)
Munich Film Festival (2006).
Although never a commercial success, Joymoti was noted for its political views and the use of a female protagonist, something almost unheard of in Indian cinema of the time.

The film was the first Indian talkie to have used Dubbing and Re-recording Technology, and the first to engage with "realism" and politics in Indian cinema. The original print containing entire length of the film was thought to be lost after India's division in 1947. However, in 1995, popular Assamese story-writer, novelist, engineer, actor, screenwriter and documentary film director Arnab Jan Deka managed to recover entire footage of the lost film at a Studio in Bombay in intact condition, and reported back the matter to Assam Government apart from writing about this recovery in Assamese daily Dainik Asam and English daily The Assam Express. Afterwards, when other prominent English and Hindi dailies like The North East Times, The News Star and Purvanchal Prahari publicly acknowledged the selfless public service of Arnab Jan Deka, the original film's director Jyotiprasad's younger brother Hridayananda Agarwala and famous Assamese actor Satya Prasad Barua also confirmed and publicly acknowledged Arnab Jan Deka's great recovery of the first original full-length print of this historic pioneer film through two separate write-ups in Dainik Asam and highly circulated English daily The Assam Tribune respectively in 1996. This matter was also debated at Assam Legislative Assembly, and Secretary, Cultural Affairs Department of Assam Government, convened an official meet to discuss this matter together with other issues pertaining to development of Assamese films. Meanwhile, some reels of another remaining print of the film maintained by Hridayananda Agarwala has been restored in part by Altaf Mazid.

Synopsis

Set in 17th-century Assam, the film recounts the sacrifice of Joymoti, an Ahom princess tortured and killed by the Ahom king Borphukan for refusing to betray her husband Gadapani by disclosing his whereabouts. The event is interpreted in contemporary patriotic terms, and calls for a greater harmony between the people of the hills and those of the plains. The hills are represented by the leader Dalimi, a Naga tribeswoman who shelters the fugitive Prince Gadapani.

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