Over 160 people have died and thousands have lost their homes in Manipur ever since violence between the Meitei and Kuki communities broke out on May 3. Amid all this, National Award-winning filmmaker Meena Longjam sent her documentary to Kerala to spread the message of peace.
A quick Google search on Manipur will take you to stories related to the ethnic clash. Clearly, people in Manipur, which still stands tall for its football players, among other things, need something positive.
“So much is going on in Manipur, so I needed a platform to spread the message of peace. I also wanted motivation. I was so broken down due to the hatred and violence,” says Longjam, who won the National award for the documentary film “Autodriver” in 2015.
Her documentary film “Andro Dreams” had its world premiere at the 15th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala 2023.
“Due to the internet ban in Manipur following the clashes, I had to fly out and spend a lot of money to give a finishing touch to my film. I had to go to Guwahati to submit my film. The festival had two stages. One was the selection stage and the other one involved uploading trailer and poster for which I needed internet,” she says.
“If I had internet here (in Manipur), I would have just sat down with my assistant and fixed things like credit and sound instead of flying out,” she adds.
The initial version of her film was not even perfect. It had many glitches. “The sound and video were not matching, dogs were barking in the background,” she recalls.
She feels glad that even though it was difficult to put it all together and send it to the festival, the audience appreciated the film that had been in the making for the last five years.
“Some wondered if it was fiction or reality. Sometimes people forget about the differences between documentary and feature filmmaking. Nowadays documentary has become very creative, intriguing, entertaining and thought-provoking,” says the Manipuri filmmaker, who started her film journey over a decade ago.
“Andro Dreams” revolves around Laibi Phanjoubam, co-founder of the Andro Mahila Mandal Association. The film is set in a small village in Andro, which is about 25 km away from Manipur’s capital Imphal.
“It is about a woman in her 70s who has been running an all-girls football club in Andro since the 1980s. It has produced more than 150 national and international football girls from there. It has a backdrop of traditional values and a brewery. It is a place where most women work hard and try to make ends meet,” says Longjam.
The film also shows the struggles of every sportsperson in Manipur. “It’s only when they are successful and win medals at international tournaments that they get attention. But nobody helps them before that. My story is about what goes into bringing out successful football players and how this woman helps them by using her limited resources from her weaving and sericulture,” she adds.
Birth of Phanjoubam, the sixth girl child in her family, was not a happy one. In fact, she was an unwanted child. “And now, she has become a revolutionary agent who has come up with a football club,” Longjam says about the football enthusiast, who doesn’t mind staying up all night just to watch the Premier League.
“Andro Dreams” is about 63 minutes long, so Longjam is trying to figure out which all film festivals will screen her documentary.
“There are many film fests which prefer documentaries that are 30 minutes long, but not 63 minutes,” says the “Achoubi in Love” director.
Still, she will try to send her film to fests, and once that ends, she will think about distribution or putting it on OTT. “I think after March 2024, I’ll think of releasing it,” says the head of the department of culture studies at Manipur University of Culture.
She has already started working on another film, which is on indigenous sport – Mukna kangjei. It is a game which is a combination of mukna (wrestling) and kangjei (cane stick). Players use a ball that is made of bamboo roots.
“I started doing it because of one of my students. He is very much into the revival of mukna kangjei,” says Longjam.
But it will take some time to complete due to the current situation in Manipur.