A Dogri feature film is a rare object. The language's first is generally dated to 1966, and the ones that followed have arrived in ones and twos across the decades since — rarely streamable, seldom revived, mostly known to people who were in the hall at the time.
On 8 September, twelve of them were read out by name in a Jammu shopping mall.
The Directorate of Information and Public Relations ran a day of screenings at Wave Mall, Jammu, as part of the first International Film Festival of Jammu & Kashmir, and Divisional Commissioner Jammu Ramesh Kumar felicitated filmmakers, producers and artists from the Jammu region. The films named in the Department's account of the day were Gallan Hoiyan Beetiya — the first Dogri feature, also written elsewhere as Gallan Hoyein Beetiyan — along with Maa Ni Mildi, Kuggi Maar Duaari, Reet, Geetian, Aau Aa Shinda, Shah Shani, Lakeer, Mehroom, Chann Mahi, Funtasiyan and Moj Masti.
The day's programme spanned short films, debut features and the festival's Cinema of the World strand, and it closed with music rather than cinema: the Dogri singer Bishan Das, and Romalo Ram & Party. DIG Jammu-Samba-Kathua Shridhar Patil, Director Census Operations Amit Sharma and Joint Director Information Deepak Dubey were among the officials present.
What makes this worth a young reader's attention is not the felicitation itself. It is the list. Twelve titles is, roughly, a working syllabus of a film tradition that belongs to this city and that most people under 25 here have never seen a frame of — which is a different problem from the one Dogri usually gets discussed as. We have written before about whether Dogri survives if young Dogras stop speaking it and about sixty years of Dogri drama. Cinema is the part of that story with the least surviving public access.
The festival itself — themed "Rang-e-Cinema", with 135 films from 41 countries — runs to 10 September. Its official site lists Movie Time Cinemas, KC Central, as the Jammu venue, while the Information Department's account of the 8 September programme places it at Wave Mall; if you are heading out for the closing day, check the venue before you travel. Our fuller piece on what the festival means for young storytellers is here.
Sources: JK Monitor, IFFJK official site and The Tribune.
