Honoured to receive Rajat Kamal for Kothanodi: Bhaskar Hazarika

OUR BUREAU

GUWAHATI, March 29: ‘Kothanodi’ has bagged the award of Best Assamese film in the 63rd tiol Film awards. The film is based on a dark exploration of Assamese folk tales. Directed by Bhaskar Hazarika and produced by Anurupa Hazarika, the film includes stars like Seema Biswas, Adil Hussain, Zerifa Wahid, Urmila Mahanta, Kopil Bora and Asha Bordoloi. It may be mentioned here that Kothanodi is the first directorial venture of Bhasar Hazarika.

Talking to The Sentinel, Hazarika shared his delight at receiving the prestigious Rajat Kamal award. He said, “Kothanodi is the sum of the cumulative efforts of over 100 people for over three years. And to the last man, woman and child who worked on the film, we are all extremely honoured and humbled to receive this honour. Two members of our unit – actor Lakhi Borthakur and boom man Dilip Deka – are tragically no more with us to share our happiness and we really miss them today”.

When asked as to the reason for basing his debut directorial venture on a dark aspect of Assamese folk tales, Hazarika said, “Kothanodi is a rrative about four women who are struggling with their own demons. The characters and plots are derived from folk tales compiled by Raxaraj Laxmith Bezbaruah in ‘Burhi Ai’r Xadhu’. This film has no message, save for the universal truth that human traits like goodness and evil, sanity and madness, all co-exist, oftentimes within the same person. The film was designed to be a dark exploration of these themes, and the fil result has been satisfying”.

Talking about his persol experiences as a first-time director, Bhaskar Hazarika said it was an ‘empowering, and at the same time, intimidating, experience to work with such stalwart actors’. He added, “They are all such lovely people and made me feel very comfortable on set. I kept myself open to ideas and suggestions from them, hoping to gain from their experience.”The Rajat Kamal award carries Rs. 1,00,000 each for the director and producer of Kothanodi.