The documentary film was awarded for the best documentary film on sports and also won the best Audiography in the 13th Manipur film award 2020, recently.
Biswadeep Gupta
‘I RISE’, a documentary film of 52 minutes which is being produced by Films Division, Mumbai and research, cinematography & directed by Imphal based National award winning filmmaker and journalist Borun Thokchom
The documentary film was awarded for the best documentary film on sports and also won the best Audiography in the 13th Manipur film award 2020, recently.
The film is about Laishram Sarita Devi who is born in a poor family, a mother, a woman pugilist, spared no effort to become a celebrated sports star of International fame. She came to limelight as the first Indian professional woman boxer after she became a mother. In spite of her fame and glory, she is passionate about empowering people who are marginalised and runs an Academy that trains and encourages destitute children to create an identity through Boxing. The story elaborates on the predicament where she navigates between her mission and her relationship with her beloved son Tomthil. This is the story of the conflict between a mother and a change maker.
Borun Thokchom’s film ‘The Silent Poet’ has received National Award in the year 2011. The film was nominated and received awards in different national and international film festivals. He also worked together with NHK World, Japan for a documentary series on WWII titled “Battle of Imphal”. He also worked as Line Producer for Kavithalayaa Productions’ musical documentary series featuring AR Rahman on Amazon Prime Video. Currently, he is shooting a documentary film called BATTLEFIELD based on WWII in Imphal.
Borun informed that he started to shoot for this film “I Rise” during the spring of 2015 and completed the post production after 5 years in December 2019. He says that the biggest challenge for a documentary filmmaker is the funding and he could do this film once the Film Division, Mumbai liked his story and approved the project.
Explaining how did he develop the story concept, Borun said ‘I was very much inspired by Sarita’s never give up attitude. I approached Sarita Devi and her husband Thoiba to make the film right after she came back from Echeon, South Korea after refusing her boxing bronze medal way back in October 2014’.
On the impact, the film may create Borun echoed and said ‘see Sarita is an active boxer, a mother, a wife, a daughter in law and above all she is a teacher running a boxing academy that trains mostly destitute children shaping them to create an identity through boxing and she keeps everything in balance. The film will inspire all women. Moreover, a young girl from a remote village of Manipur becoming a celebrated sports star is not that easy. So I believe the film will surely inspire youths as well, to dream big’
Borun went on to tell that he also evolved while shooting with Sarita, as making a film on Sarita he had to be punctual. He says, ‘I had to wake up early to get the shots. So I learned many things in the course of film making. Every film we make teaches us many lessons in life. I was inspired by a sports person’s life while making this film. Their food habits, discipline, punctuality.
While commenting on the prevailing pandemic, Borun sadly feels that all the film festivals would be in all probability cancelled, so he plans to showcase the film online, though he will have to get the green signals from his producer.
