Pamphlet now available for "Rustle of Spring, Whiff of Gunpowder: Documentaries from Northeast India"

From October 11-14, 2019, the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) in collaboration with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation will feature a Special Program entitled “Rustle of Spring, Whiff of Gunpowder: Documentaries from Northeast India.” With the distinction of being the first international documentary film festival in Asia, YIDFF has gained international renown having featured a number of acclaimed documentary films throughout its 30-year history. For additional details about the films and screening schedule for this special event, please click here.

Surrounded by Tibet, China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, the northeast region of India connects to the mainland via a slender stretch of land of just 22 kilometers in width, euphemistically called the “chicken neck.” From the time of Independence, the Indian state has obsessively worried about the map of this area getting severed from this slender chicken neck. Confronted by the self-determination struggles of the indigenous people of the region, Indian cartographic mania has pushed the democratic life there to just a frontier footnote.
 
But political turbulence is not the only story. As a geographical and civilizational bridge, the region has been at the crossroads of much older histories of community cultures. With more than 200 languages and scores of tribes, from hill societies to valley dwelling cultures, Northeast India could be celebrated as a microcosm of diversity. This program presents the tension and dialogue between the post-colonial Indian state’s efforts to represent the region and local filmmakers who seize back the narrative of their experiences.

For more about the Asia Peace Initiatives Department, please visit the program page.
To learn more about the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, please visit the official website.