"Ngaihak Lambida" selected for 6th Asian Film Fest

By: Manipur Info Centre *

Shortly after hearing the good news of the Manipuri film Ngaihak Lambida (A moment along the way) for its entry into the Indian Panorama Non-Feature Section of the 38th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2007 from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the film maker Haobam Paban Kumar received another e-mail message dated 16 October 2007 from Sudhir Nandgaonkar, the Director of the Asian Film Foundation, Mumbai informing him the recommendation of his 35mm short fiction film Ngaihak Lambida by the Selection Committee for participation in the competition of Short Fiction Films in the Third Eye 6th Asian Film Festival, Mumbai to be held from November 1 to 8, 2007.

The 19-minute film based on a short story written by MK Binodini will vie for the best short film of the competition to be adjudged by an international jury and to be awarded a trophy plus cash prize of US $ 1,000.

The story was set in 2006 Manipur, a North East State in India where decades of insurgency had thrown the society into disarray.

The people had receded into a cocooned existence, devoid of any space for self-expression. Manileima, a 35-year old independent woman who was a second wife of a contractor lived separately from her husband and earned her livelihood by selling clothes.

Her husband visited her but she hardly took any help from him. One day her son Bungo injured his hand and was hospitalized.

In the hospital, different people came to her offering their help. But one man, a stranger helped them the most.

The stranger and her nephew Geet started sharing a close bond. Slowly Manileima got attracted to the stranger through Geet's stories and the stranger's affection for her child. But they never managed to meet face-to-face due to social pressure and her shyness.

Days passed and finally on the day of her son's discharge, she decided to make a choice for herself.

• Seema played the role of Manileima;
• Kangabam Tomba, the stranger,
• Tarkovsky Haobam, the son Bungo and
• RK Surchandra, the nephew Geet.

It was a production of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata made in last year when Haobam Paban Kumar was a student studying in film direction.

The film in colour had the credits of

• Shehnad Jalal as cameraman,
• Prasun Sen Gupta as sound recordist,
• Sankha as Editor,
• Ningthouja Lancha as Music Director and
• Haobam Paban Kumar as Screen playwright and Director.