How a National Award-winning filmmaker is trying to change the perception of Bhojpuri cinema, and promote local languages & culture of the native people, one film at a time

ITIN NEERA CHANDRA is on a mission. The National Award-winning filmmaker from Bihar is not only making films in the local languages of his native state, but is also determined on changing the people's perception of cinema from the region.

- REWATI KARAN

Blaming the "imposition of Hindi" on the Maithili, Bhojpuri and Magahi speaking people of the eastern Indian state, Chandra says: "The basic problem in Bihar for the identity or culture, including cinema, literature and music, to get stereotyped in Bollywood or the churning of sleazy, crassy or lowbrow cinema comes from the fact that Hindi has been imposed in Bihar so organically and for so long that now Biharis are too disillusioned or far from this issue."

As a result, Biharis have gotten disconnected from their own languages, adds Chandra, who is known for films such as Mithila Makhaan (in Maithili) and Deswa (in Bhojpuri). While Mithila Makhaan won the National Film Awards in 2016, Deswa premiered at the International Film Festival of India in 2011.

He is the elder brother of actress Neetu Chandra, whose production house Champaran Talkies produced the film, Mithila Makhaan.

The middle class and upper middle class have abandoned the language, laments Chandra, which has led to a "peculiar phenomenon" in Bhojpuri cinema. "Usually, cinema is heterogeneous all over the world and it doesn't target a particular group. For example, everyone is watching the Telugu film, Pushpa. But in the Bhojpuri industry, the films mostly target rickshawallahs, autowallahs, migrant labourers or other such underprivileged people. It's because they are the only ones speaking Bhojpuri and form the majority of the language's speakers," he explains.