'Joymoti Never Left" (Tumi Najaba, Joymoti)'

'Joymoti Never Left' (Tumi Najaba, Joymoti), the first feature film by Assamese director Mehdi Jahan, will have its international premiere at the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2024 (IFFR 2024), the film's producers said in a statement on Thursday.

Joymoti Never Left made history by becoming the first Assamese feature film to be officially chosen for the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), after Jahnu Barua's 'Hkhagoroloi Bohu Door' (It's a long walk to the sea) in 1996.

Mehdi Jahan is the producer, director, photographer, and co-editor of "Joymoti Never Left." Duttatreya, a filmmaker and editor, co-edited the movie.

It'll be shown under the festival's 'Cinema Regained' section, which is described as "a sphere of collective remembrance and imagination offering restored classics, documentaries on film culture, and explorations of cinema’s heritage" on the official IFFR website.

The event is scheduled for February 4–February 25.

Satyashree Agarwala Das, the grand-daughter of Jyotiprasad Agarwala, the first Assamese filmmaker, and her great-grandson, Raghu Pratap, not only feature in the movie but also actively participated in its making.

The first Assamese film, "Joymoti," was directed by the polymath Jyotiprasad Agarwala in 1935. His remarkable corpus of work includes several plays, songs, and poetry.

Through the eyes of Satyashree Agarwala Das, Radha Das, and Raghu Pratap, "Joymoti Never Left" paints a surreal portrait of Jyotiprasad Agarwala, with a strong emphasis on his much-overlooked inventiveness as a filmmaker and steadfastly feminist ideals.

According to IFFR's official website, famous German cinema critic and curator Olaf Möller writes, "past, present, and future become one in this essay on cultural heritage and its various political and spiritual dimensions." Mehdi Jahan produced a number of narrative and experimental short films in Assamese before this one. These films were presented and won awards at a number of esteemed national and international cinema festivals.

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