New Delhi/Guwahati: An almost Shah Rukh Khan-like entry of the hero running to hug his mother, an old legal case and mysterious murders—that is how the Assamese movie Dr Bezbaruah 2 begins. The hit singer Zubeen Garg is a flamboyant policeman who belts out dialogues like, “You must have heard my name. But it is also okay if you haven’t. I don’t like publicity.” His insane fanbase in the hall laughed and cheered.
Assamese cinema hasn’t had it this good in two decades. Money is flowing in. Storytelling is back. Audience is packing into the halls.
The 88-year-old film industry has seen hit machines that earned lakhs of rupees. But the Garg-starrer, which released on 3 February, has already collected Rs 6.5 crore at the box office so far, raking Rs 1 crore in the opening weekend.
In September 2022, Bulu, made on a budget of Rs 30 lakh, ran for four housefull weeks. The kicker? It had an ‘A’ certificate and was released in the same week as Brahmastra, made on a budget of Rs 410 crore and boasted of never-before-seen VFX in Bollywood.
Even small-budget movies are part of this new renaissance.
In May 2022, a crowdfunded comedy movie Local Utpaat made good business, lasting 13 weeks in Assamese halls. Directed by Kenny Basumatary, it’s a laugh riot and a hit with all age groups, tapping into the same magic that made Basumatary’s debut film — Local Kung Fu — a success.
“This is an exciting time for Assamese cinema. I don’t recall the last time 80 films were made in a year,” said Maharshi Tuhin Kashyap, a young filmmaker and scriptwriter.
Dr Bezbaruah (1969) was an iconic black-and-white thriller directed by late Brajen Baruah. It was the first thriller in Assamese and enjoys a cult status. Starring Nipon Goswami, who directed the sequel and died in October last year, the songs of Dr Bezbaruah are still popular and were remixed for the sequel. the remixes have been received positively with their views exceeding the originals’ on YouTube.
Adil Hussain, who plays the lead in Dr Bezbaruah 2, was six years old when the original came out. “I have a vivid memory of a scene when Nipon Goswami announces ‘I am Dr Bezbaruah MBBS haha’,” says Hussain.
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Publicity is key
Dr Bezbaruah 2 followed a pattern of aggressive promotion, a successful strategy seen with films like 2017 hit Mission China. Films shown through projectors on a portable screen have become a major attraction in rural and semi-urban areas, especially in Assam’s tea estates.
“You could not really miss the sequel. TV ads to posters to schools and colleges, it was everywhere,” says Prayash Sharma Tamuly, an independent cinematographer who has worked on Mission China besides films like Bornodi Bhotiai: Love, by the River and Goru.
A bit of star power also helped.
The craze for Zubeen Garg among the youth is undeniable, even though he has been an icon since the 1990s.
A tabloid favourite in Assam, the talented playback singer regularly draws in large crowds for his Bihu concerts. Even in Dr Bezbaruah, his role as the eccentric policeman Mahadev Barbarooah has the best quirky one-liners.
“A commercial hit provides the monetary impetus to do more work and hire more trained people,” says Tamuly.
It’s possible that the success of SRK’s Pathaan acted as a catalyst and made people return to cinema halls to relive the experience of watching a film with family and being excited about it, according to Hussain.
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Rise from the ashes
Garg and other stars like Jatin Bora are an exception in this recent rise. Many films don’t rely on big-name stars.
In the last few years, Assamese films have quietly begun to emerge from their state of near-collapse, caused mostly by a combination of piracy, steep multiplex tickets and the rise of TV entertainment.
“We did not have the money for known faces. So the choice was also driven by budget constraints,” says Shyam Bora, who co-owns Metanormal Productions, the company behind Kothanodi and Aamis, with Bhaskar Hazarika.
The tide changed when self-taught filmmaker Rima Das’s Village Rockstars became the first Assamese film to enter the Oscar race in 2019.
The film was shot entirely by Das on a Canon 5D camera using a single lens. She also edited, scripted and directed it. The protagonist was a child who had never acted before in her life.
Das and the protagonist’s storylines mirror each other — they both had near-impossible dreams. The 10-year-old Dhunu wants her own guitar, despite living in raging poverty and Das wanted to make a film completely on her own. In the end, both become rockstars.
Two years before Village Rockstars, Bhaskar Hazarika’s Kothanodi did another unthinkable feat by subverting popular children’s folk tales—Tejimola, Champawati, Ou Kuwori, and Tawoir Xadhu. Based on Burhi Aair Sadhu or Grandma’s tales, compiled by Laxminath Bezbaruah, the film was a gripping tale of motherhood in all its grey shades. Kothanodi was not a commercial success but won the National Award for best Assamese film.
In 2019, Hazarika re-created his magic of storytelling with Aamis, which means ‘non-vegetarian’ in Assamese. The dark tale starts off as a harmless love story between a married paediatrician Nirmali (Lima Das) and a young PhD student Sumon (Arghadeep Baruah), who is researching the food patterns of the people from the Northeast. Food becomes a metaphor for lovemaking.
“The idea was to provoke people,” Bhaskar says. Bora, though, doesn’t share the emotion. “When I heard the script, all I could think of was that people might beat us up,” he says.
And people had all kinds of reactions to the film, but mostly it was curiosity. They kept turning up to watch this ‘weird’ movie and slowly, word trickled down that it was indeed a fantastic movie.
“If anyone asked for Assamese film recommendations I would recommend this movie, and most of my other Assamese friends did that too,” says Nayana Kotoky, a software engineer based in Gurugram who had given up on Assamese films but is now returning to it with a renewed appetite.
Bulu’s power lies in its screenplay, written by Himanshu Prasad Das, Maharshi Tuhin Kashyap, and Chanku Niranjan Nath. The film follows three men who lose their jobs due to Covid and return to their village. They decide to make a porn film — colloquially known as ‘blue film’ but often mispronounced as ‘bulu’ — and ask an allegedly promiscuous widow to act in it. What happens next forms the crux of the story.
Bulu upended the narrative of an ‘innocent’ village life, a constant trope in Assamese films. Patriarchy, hypocrisy and desperation are woven into the script.
Viewers weren’t exactly anticipating the kind of stories that Village Rockstars, Aamis and Bulu offered, having come from a decade of formulaic Bollywood ripoffs.
“Gripping storytelling will always work. I don’t believe in stardom, film has to be good,” Hussain said.
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From awards to box office success
Despite being one of the oldest film industries of India, Jollywood has not managed to emerge as a money-maker the way Telugu, Tamil, Kannada or Malayalam industries have. It has however raked up national awards, almost every year, since 1955.
Jahnu Baruah made award-winning films like Halodhia Choraye Baodhan Khai (1987), Firingoti (1992) and Konikar Ramdhenu (2003). Santwana Bordoloi, a paediatrician, made two national award-winning feature films — Adajya (1996) and Maj Rati Keteki (2017). But these weren’t money-makers.
After tasting commercial success in the 2000s, the Assam film industry fell prey to piracy. CD players became common in households. Then came Bihu cassettes — whose songs, an important part of Assamese new year celebration in April, would later feature in films and remain the source of viewer interest.
The final nail was the rise in ticket prices with the entry of multiplexes. People turned to TV serials or Bollywood films shown on TV.
The new boom began in 2019, before Covid.
Ratnakar: A New Myth of Love, the current highest-earning Assamese film, banked roughly Rs 10 crore. Inspired by the 2016 Vijay-starrer Tamil film Theri, Ratnakar released in 59 theatres in Assam and 12 outside the Northeast. Before Ratnakar, it was Kanchanjangha (2019) — Rs 7 crore — and Mission China (2017) — Rs 5 crore.
But there were failed movies in the heap as well.
The budget is a big constraint, some barely have enough money for the shoot which leaves nothing for publicity. “You can make sure your film makes noise by tying up with some ad agency or national newspaper. But it is only possible if you have a big budget,” says Shyam Bora.
Aamis released on 22 November 2019 and was doing steady business before it was affected by the anti-CAA protests. It was later picked up by Sony LIV.
But not every movie gets a second life on OTT platforms. Bhaskar’s latest, Emuthi Puthi, failed at the box office despite being critically acclaimed.
“There is no single formula,” says Tamuly, “the audience is unpredictable in Assam.”
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)