Aideu - Behind the Screen

The story of Aideu Sandique, an actress-heroine of the first feature film made in Assam, a province in the northeast part of India, is retold with actors and use of archive material. The colossal woman-personality sacrificed all the happiness of her life just to usher the succeeding generations of woman folk to film acting. In 1935, director Jyotiprasad Agarwalla made an effort to find out the heroine to act in Joymoti, based in a historical fact, due to some prejudice of the so-called society. At that time, nobody belonging to the female folk could dare to participate in theatre too. At that moment, a person came to director and brought Aideu Handique that became the actress of the film. In the mean time, the so-called conservative people of the village socially boycotted her family considering her acting in the film as an evil deed. So after completion of her shooting, when she returned home she had to pass the rest of her life in a small separate hut lonely apart from the other members of the family. She was barred to fill her pitcher from the publicly used river and she had her settled matrimonial proposal cancelled by the bridegroom’ family. Aideu remained unmarried for the whole life and she died in December, 2002.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA