Imphal: Haobam Paban Kumar’s second feature- Nine Hills One Valley (2020) has been travelling in the international film festival circuit after it had its world premiere at the 16th edition of Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival 2021 held from November 27 to December 4 at Yogyakarta in Indonesia.
The film was screened in the India Gold section of the 22nd Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2022 held in February. It participated in the 1st International Tribal Film Festival (ITFF) 2022 held in March in Arunachal Pradesh. It also entered the 17th International Film Festival Thrissur (25 Mar – 7 April 2022) Kerala for FIPRESCI-India prize and the competition section of the Asian Select Category of the 27th Kolkata International Film Festival 2022 in April in Kolkata.
Nine Hills One Valley was recently selected among the top 10 Indian Films of 2021 Nominated for Fipresci-India Grand-Prix-2021. IMDb (Internet Movie Database) also uploaded the Top- 10 Indian Films of 2021 in its website.
Then, the film will travel to Canada for the Ottawa Indian Film Festival Awards 2022 to be held from June 14 to 18 in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. In this 5th edition of Ottawa Festival, Nine Hills One Valley will be in the competition section with other 11 films.
Also read: Haobam Paban Kumar’s ‘Nine Hills One Valley’ to complete in 27th KIFF 2022
Haobam Paban Kumar’s Nine Hills One Valley evokes the futility and barbarism of ethnic conflict through the journey of a Tangkhul man travelling to Imphal City; Raajhorshee De’s large-scale family drama Abbar Kanchanjangha is inspired by the cinema of Satyajit Ray and features 17 top Bengali actors; Abhilash Shetty’s The Chicken Curry (Koli Taal) takes a slightly comedic slant on the old Karnataka tradition of serving guests a prime rooster for dinner; Sagar Puranik’s Dollu pits tradition against modernity through the story of Bhadra, a traditional drummer and dancer who wishes to reunite his old team from the city to honour the decades-old traditions of his village; Tara Ramanujan’s debut Forbidden (Nishiddho) recounts the unlikely kinship between an ex-idol maker from Kolkata and a tough Tamil midwife; Life is Suffering. Death is Salvation. by Arvind Pratap, is a humanistic foray into the lonely, isolated world of an old dairy farmer who just lost his son; Mahananda from popular filmmaker Arindam Sil, is a fictionalized homage to the great activist Mahasweta Devi; in Mehul Agaja’s Niwaas, it is discovered how two old men’s friendship can be strong enough to withstand even death; with The Road to Kuthriyar, director Bharat Mirle invites the audience to explore the luxuriant Kokaidanal Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu and to bask in the soothing simplicity of rural life; Chittaranjan Giri’s The Space (Awakash) focuses on the interior struggle of a Pune woman forced to reconsider the social values that have moulded her and her sister’s upbringing; also set in Pune, A Vicious Circle (Vartul) by Shirkant Mukund Choudhari is a white-knuckle thriller about a couple faced with a dangerous home invader; finally, Atal Krishnan’s Woman with a Movie Camera tackles the daily hardships of Indian women head-on through its honest, documentary-style approach.
Haobam Paban Kumar is one of the leading independent filmmaker of India who was honoured with the title- Legend of Indian Cinema by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India in the 50th International film festival of India 2019.
Also read: Haobam Paban Kumar’s ‘Nine Hills One Valley’ to World Premiere at Jogja, Indonesia