GUWAHATI, Aug 21 - Adding another feather in its cap, Assamese film Xhoihobote Dhemalite (Rainbow Fields) has won the Best Screenplay award in the recently concluded Treasure Coast International Film Festival, Florida, US. The film was nominated in as many as five categories in this prestigious festival.
On receiving the award, the writer-director Bidyut Kotoky said, �The film�s story is based on the soil of Assam, but people from halfway across the globe are relating to it. It just goes to show once again that the colour of emotion across the globe is same. In Xhoihobote Dhemalite, we always believed that we are making a world cinema in the Assamese language.�
For the past one decade, the Treasure Coast International Film Festival (TCIFF) has been a much anticipated event that puts the spotlight on the Treasure Coast film industry. Dedicated to promotion of independent and foreign films as an art form, it brings films of artistic and cultural importance to the community, while honouring the filmmakers and production teams behind these works of art.
This year, the Treasure Coast International Film Festival presented the TCIFF Lifetime Achievement Award to film action director and industry veteran Isaac Florentine. In fact, the 2018 festival started with the film, Acts of Vengeance, directed by Isaac Florentine and starring Antonio Banderas.
Last month, Xhoixobote Dhemalite became the first Assamese film to be commercially released in the US. The film also won three awards in the Love International Film Festival, Los Angeles, including the Best Film award.
The film stars veteran Victor Banerjee along with artistes like Nipon Goswami, Nikumoni Barua, Nakul Vaid, Naved Aslam and Dipannita Sharma. Inspired by true events and set in Assam in the violent period of the 1980s, the film is about children growing up in violent places, witnessing brutality around them and how it affects them deeply, leaving an indelible mark on their psyche.
The film is produced by India Stories, a Mumbai-based production house, and co-produced by Bidyut Kotoky�s Dhruv Creative Productions and Kurmasana Kreates, a US-based production house. Mukul Gogoi is the associate producer of the film.
When the film was struggling for funds, a Dubai-based philanthropist Jani Viswanath, convinced by the fact that this story needs to be told, came on board as an executive producer, and also pledged to extend her earnings from the film back to Assam via her NGO, Healing Lives.
