[Reader-list] Imphalwood: Digital revolution and the Death of Celluloid

[ranjan yumnam]

This is my first post on the Sarai readerlist as an Independent Fellow, and
I hope the topic of my research--*Imphalwood: Digital revolution and the
Death of Celluloid*—would be of interest to you. A word before I go on
further: Other than the movie culture, I will be even more delighted if I
succeed in giving you new insights into the society, culture, politics and
economy of Manipur. This is hoped to be achieved by juxtaposing the Manipuri
cinema against the larger mainstream media. The mainstream media are either
ignorant of the North-East of India or they choose to ignore/ downplay news
and views emanating from it for reasons best known to themselves. As much as
most will consider this a clichéd refrain of the Manipuris and for that
matter people of the North-East in general, the harsh truth is: the
impression in the North-East is that a pothole in a road in a Delhi road
merits much more extensive coverage by the Delhi-centric media than the
parliamentary elections in the regions do.

*Media bias*

At rare times when the region grabs the attention of the news editors, it is
inevitably the news of bomb blasts, ethnic clashes and counter-insurgency
operations that get disproportionately played up. There is an unspoken rule-
of- thumb that gatekeepers of the Indian media follow when selecting news
from the NE. The first one is, if the news is not about violence, then throw
it to the dustbin. The second rule is, if the copy is not laced with
bloodshed, it should tell exotic facts (mostly narratives remotely related
to reality) about the bewildered region and its people.

It's not uncommon to find features on the North-East in the Indian media
that reek of condescension and stupidity (most of the times) on the part of
the writer.  Features with headlines like "Nagas eat dogs", "Is casual sex a
way of life in Mizoram?" and myriad such tasteless fictions of mind of lazy
reporters find their way in print. What's worse, editors seem to prefer
these drivels over the more pressing issues of the region like insurgency,
underdevelopment, corruption, education and many others. And this in turn
creates a further incentive for the dumbos to write more of the same,
because they *sell*. Media like any industry is a commercial entity that is
hypersensitive to the market. Feel pity for those people who still believe
that journalism has a mission and responsibility towards society.

Then imagine the frustration that people of Manipur might face when they
seek to let out their genuine concerns and voices in the media. Sharmila
Irom had to be on fast for six years to demand the scrapping of the
draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act before the media felt its
conscience pricked. Her supporters say, and with much truth, that Medha
Patkar or a Arundhati Roy or for that matter Mamata Bannerjee or Narendra
Modi would have taken just two hours at the Jantar Mantar to create a media
storm more effective than six years of Irom's agony for  justice could ever
achieve.  And you thought Indian media was skin blind. People of the
North-East are not black, but they are Blacks of India. So don't be
surprised when some brave Manipuri women had to take the desperate step of
baring themselves in full glare of the cameras to attract the mercy of the
Indian media. They knew that the only means of getting coverage is by
playing to the gallery of stereotypes held by the Indian media.

The utter lack of knowledge about the region might also have fuelled the
secessionist movement in the region and feelings of alienation. There is
also some truth in the criticism that Indian education selectively promotes
the ideologies, history and moorings of the dominant groups while failing to
educate the masses about its other citizens living in the moffusil areas. So
what do you do?

*Here comes cinema*

Cinema is a powerful tool that marginalized people can employ to counter the
mainstream historical narrative and reorient the incumbent political,
socio-economic and cultural order and discourse. Conversely, it is one of
the most effective means of getting to know a society in an entertaining and
sometimes provocative manner. For instance, if you have watched some of the
Manipuri films, by any chance, then you have known more about the
aspirations, conflicts and tensions of the small state more than you would
have ever gleaned from reading ten books on the state.

Before giving a chronological introduction on the Manipuri cinema, here are
some FAQs. They are intended to prepare you, the distant readers,
(figuratively and literally) to a journey of discovery of the Manipur film
industry.

*How many Manipuri films are produced in a year? *

 Not 5 or 10. A conservative estimate is 70-80. Not bad for a young
industry.

*Have any Manipuri films won National and International awards? *

Most of the films made on celluloid before the advent of the digital
facilities were either award winners or award nominees though they were
fewer in number compared to the current output of digital films.

*Why are Manipuri films not much heard about nowadays or screened at film
festivals?*

Blame the entry rule of most of the popular film festivals which allows only
movies made on film. No one in Manipur is interested in using celluloid
medium because of its prohibitive cost. As these festivals are set to open
to digital films in the future, one will get to see a surfeit of Manipuri
films in the near future. And hopefully winning accolades as well.

*Are there songs and dances in the Manipuri films? *

Yes, they form an important ingredient of popular films in Manipuri films.
But they are more realistic and devoid of melodrama overdose, unlike the
Bollywood. Item numbers have not made an appearance in these films.

*Are there playback singers? *

Besides the homegrown singers, Bollywood artistes like Lata Mangeshkar,
Kumar Shanu, Shaan, Kavita Krishnamurthi, Alka Yagnik, Anuradha Paudwal and
many others have sung for the Manipuri film background scores.

*What is the average cost of making a Manipuri digital film?*

Anything between 2-20 lakhs. Some films have shooting done outside the state
or in foreign locations in which case the budget can almost quadruple.
Popular Mumbai based TV actors are paid to make guest appearances
*ala*Bollywood item numbers.


*Is Bollywood popular in Manipur?*

It used to be but after the ban imposed by the militants on all Hindi movies
and channels, Manipuris have started turning their gaze elsewhere. South
Korean movies and soaps which are beamed through cable are lapped up like
the Indian Saas bahu serials. DVDs of South Korean movies flood the market
and they are qualitatively better than most of the Bollywood potboilers
(sorry to say this). One can see some influence of the Korean films on the
narrative and production values of the Manipuri cinema.

*Are there adequate post production facilities in Manipur?*

Earlier post production work used to be done at Kolkata, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar,
Guwahati and Delhi. With digitalization, pop-and-mom studios have sprung up
giving the sophisticated big studios a run for their money. With nothing
more than a few desktops and a clutch of editing softwares, local talent has
bloomed in these small facilities enabling the filmmakers to cut costs.

*Why is Manipur film Industry called Imphalwood, not Manipurwood or
Mollywood?*

Imphal is the nerve centre --or Mumbai-- of filmmaking in Manipur. In fact,
the films are made by the valley based Meiteis (non-tribe Hindu population)
for the Meiteis in Manipuri language. Meiteis are the Kapoors, Khans,
Bachhans, Ram Gopal Vermas and Ajai Bijlis all rolled into one.

*Is there a market for Manipuri films outside the state?*

There are already ambitious filmmakers in Manipur who are trying to carve
out a niche for themselves as crossover filmmakers. South Korean films are a
great inspiration as they echo the realism of the earlier celluloid Manipuri
films. Subtitling film dialogues is being considered as one of the
techniques to expand the audience base across the boundaries of Manipur.
Baring Assam, other northeastern states do not have as robust filmmaking
tradition as the Manipuris do, a fact that is being seen with great
commercial interest. Manipuri diaspora in Bangladesh and Assam, filmmakers
contend, could become consumers of the Manipuri films in the years to come
if helped by a little promotional blitz. After sports and theatre, movies
are billed as the next big export from Manipur. Quite a possibility.

*Which is the first state in India (perhaps in the world) to fully
digitalize film production, post production, distribution and exhibition?*

Manipur. It has never been highlighted in the mainstream media. While the
Hollywood talks about the Grand Digital Future where all films can be viewed
in any platforms--iPods, mobile phones, internet, multiplex, home
theatres--as the YouTube generation has increasingly become 'platform
agnostic', that scenario is already unfolding  in Manipur. Music video and
movie clips are swapped religiously among the tech-savvy teenagers. Trailers
are uploaded on the internet. There is no costly format conversion to be
made, as everything is in bits and bytes and they are convenient for
distribution and sharing.

*Is piracy an issue?*

Definitely. Digital format is the most fertile creature that can reproduce
its own clones at a neck breaking speed. They spread faster among the cinema
loving populace of Manipur more than the other formidable contender:
HIV/AIDS. In response to this menace, producers have innovated local
mechanisms to curb it. And they are effective.

It would be an understatement to say that Manipur has a rich tradition of
film appreciation and filmmaking which dates back to the dawn of the last
century. The first cinema screening in Manipur took place in the year 1920,
only about two decades after the first world screening at Paris by the
Lumiere brothers. The films shown were mainly the foreign films as during
this period, any organized effort to make films in Manipur was absent. It
was only after the World War II that the Manipur's first film company, Shree
Govindajee Film Company, was established. Its first attempted feature film
was *Mainu Pemcha* in 1948. However, the first full-fledged feature
film *Matamgee
Manipur* (Today's Manipur) was screened on 9th April, 1972 at Usha Cinema,
Friends Talkies in Imphal and Azad Cinema. Post independence, the cinema
movement got strengthened further with the establishment of Film Society in
1966, Imphal Cine Club in 1979 and Manipur Film Development Council in 1980.


The big moment for the Manipuri cinema came in 1982 when Aribam Shyam
Sharma's *Imagee Ningthem* (My Child, My Precious) won the GRAND PRIX at the
NANTE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, the first Indian film to achieve the
distinction. Since then many Manipuri films have won National Film awards,
and of late a trend is emerging of young filmmakers fresh out of the
filmmaking schools who have gone on to make experimental, yet hugely
popular, films and documentaries. Last year, Pavan Kumar, an AAFT graduate
won the applause of the audience and jury with his heart wrenching and
brutally honest documentary that brought to the screen images of
paramilitary forces' excesses perpetrated on civilians in Manipur under the
shield of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The documentary won the
Critic's award at the Mumbai International Film Festival and was also
critically acclaimed at the Toronto Film Festival, Karachi Film Festival and
a slew of other international platforms.

Technology has a big role in giving a big boost to the Manipur film
industry. The digital format is a boon for the filmmakers in the state which
has a tiny market that is confined in the valley. The film production cost
has drastically gone down and as a result Manipur churns out more films in a
year than it used to produce in decades before the turn of the 21st century.
Though the audience is small, the returns on investment are almost assured,
albeit over a long period of time, due to the digitalization of the post
production, distribution and exhibition. Very few people know that Manipur
is the first state in India to go the whole hog in digitalization of all the
stages of filmmaking right to the exhibition. In fact there is no hall in
Manipur any more that screen celluloid movies. The old film projectors have
become an antique piece destined to land up in museums, and owners have
replaced them with digital projectors.

This writer proposes to study how this transformation from the analog to the
digital format has affected the content and form of the Manipuri films. Has
it encouraged the producers, directors, cinematographers and writers to take
risks and experiment with new forms of storytelling and visual language?  Most
importantly, is there a distinctive cinema called *Manipuri Cinema* in the
sense of a unique theme, form and content? If Hollywood can be identified
with big budget, technical wizardry and studio-cum-star driven industry,
Bollywood with song and dance extravaganza, Bhojpuri cinema with vulgarity
and songs, songs and songs, Italian cinema with neo-realism and French
cinema with New Wave cinema, what is Manipuri Cinema then? That's a question
that this study seeks to explore, with spotlights trained on other aspects
of the Manipur cinema as well--its inspirations, prospects, economics, the
cultural impact and its place in the pantheon of world cinema. Which I will
attempt to elaborate in my forthcoming postings with empirical data and
extensive interviews with the film fraternity in Manipur.

Comments, questions, suggestions, brickbats and bouquets are welcome any
time.
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