Assamese shine at the 55th National Film Awards

Assamese film-makers and musicians shone bright at the recently announced 55th National Film Awards for 2007. Musician Zubeen Garg received his first national award as best music director for his work on Echoes of Silence, a film on the Tai Phake people of Assam. The film was awarded the best in the Anthropological/Ethnographic film category.

Merajur Rahman Baruah, a Delhi based film-maker originally from Lakhimpur, bagged the Best Film on Social Issues (Non-feature) award. His film Shifting Prophecy talks about struggles of rural Muslim women in Tamil Nadu against patriarchal social and religious diktat.

Bombay based Nilanjan Dutta from Nagaon was awarded the best film in the scientific category. His film Bhanga Ghara is on water issues in the Malda district of West Bengal.

It can be mentioned that noted film-maker Manju Borah was a member of the jury in the Awards that saw several entries from Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland. There were, however, no entries from Assam in the feature category.