page_title: Joymoti (1935 film)
section_title: Filming
hierarchical_section_title: Joymoti (1935 film) / Filming
caption_attribution_description: Film studio of Joymati.
context_page_description: Joymoti or Joimoti, released on 10 March 1935, was the first Assamese film made. Based on Lakshminath Bezbaroa's play about the 17th-century Ahom princess Soti Joymoti, the film was produced and directed by the noted Assamese poet, author, and film-maker Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, and starred Aideu Handique and acclaimed stage actor and playwright Phani Sarma. The film, shot between 1933 and 1935, was released by Chitralekha Movietone in 1935 and marked the beginning of Assamese cinema.
  Joymoti was screened at the 50th International Conference of the Society For Cinema and Media Studies of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, United States in March 2011.
  Other screenings include:
  India-Bangladesh Joint Celebration of 100 Years of Indian Cinema, Dhaka
  UCLA's Centre for India and South Asia Studies, Los Angeles
  Osian-Cinefan's 10th Film Festival of Asian and Arabic Cinema, New Delhi
  Filmbüro Baden Württemberg's Internationales Indisches Filmfestival, Stuttgart
  Asiaticafilmidale, Rome
  Munich Film Festival.
  Although never a commercial success, Joymoti was noted for its political views and the use of a female protagonist, something almost unheard of in Indian cinema of the time.
context_section_description: For all indoor shooting, Jyoti Prasad set up a studio at Bholaguri Tea Estate, near Gohpur, which was owned by the Agarwala family. Named Chitraban, the studio was built using local materials such as wood, bamboo, and banana stumps. The set was artistically designed by Jyoti Prasad himself using bamboo mats, japis of different sizes, deer horns, buffalo horns, and Nāga spears. To furnish the royal court of the Ahoms, he used regal utensils such as maihang, hengdang, bhogjara, bata, sariya, and banbata. He imported a Faizi sound-recording system from Lahore, and the first camera into Assam from Mehta of Calcutta.
  The unit arrived at Bholaguri Tea Estate in December 1933 to commence filming, and camped in front of the garden factory. Jyoti Prasad arranged all accommodation arrangements personally, and set up a laboratory for developing film by the side of his ‘Chitraban’ studio.
  According to Natasurya Phani Sarma, who played a key role in the film, Chitraban was not merely a studio, but a film-training institute in itself. Apart from the acting, Jyoti Prasad also taught his actors certain film-making techniques—such as developing, processing, printing, and editing—and shared with them his knowledge of various film shots like mixed shot, fade out, zoom, dissolve, back projection, and model shooting. The 17th-century costumes used in the film were designed by Jyoti Prasad, and the make-up was done by the actors themselves, assisted by Sonitkowar Gajen Borua. 
  Although shooting at the Chitraban Studio started in April 1933, it faced an initial delay as Jyoti Prasad was unable to find a suitable young woman to play "Joymoti", as well as actors for a few other roles. He floated newspaper advertisements for actors and actresses, mentioning brief outlines of the film and descriptions of the characters. His idea was to get ‘types’ for his characters, not seasoned actors, even offering remunerations for successful candidates. One of his preconditions was that potential actors needed to be from ‘respectable’ families, as opposed to red-light areas, as had been the case during the 1930s in Calcutta. This was inspired by Jyoti Prasad's desire to liberate cinema from that "uncertain" reputation. After a prolonged search and detailed interviews, he discovered Aideu Handique in a remote village near Golaghat, for the role of Joymoti: she was to become the first actress of Assamese cinema. He then brought together the other chosen actors, of whom some had never seen a film, to acquaint them with his characters. He sought out a film-making trio, Bhupal Shankar Mehta and the Faizi Brothers from Lahore, as cameraman and sound-recordists.
  During filming, the rainy season was to prove a challenge to developments in the technical process, with Jyoti Prasad having to suspend shooting for several days at a time, due to insufficient light in the absence of outdoor electricity. Shooting was carried out under sunlight by using reflectors. When the rain stopped, the banana stumps used to build the splendid Ahom court dried out under the sunlight, yet filming continued - japis ingeniously fastened over the dry patches. Filming was eventually completed in August 1934, and Joymoti released in early 1935 after Jyoti Prasad had completed his own editing.
caption: The first ever Assamese film studio at the Bholaguri Tea Estate
exif: {}