Oie Jamuna | A documentary by Tanvir Mokammel | Kino-Eye Films | Official

Descending from Tibet and crossing the whole Asam valley the Brahmaputra river, after entering into Bangladesh, has taken the name— the Jamuna. An off-shoot of the mighty Brahmaputra, the present Jamuna, created by an earthquake in the eighteenth century, now itself is a major river of the world. The Jamuna, a braided river rather than a meandering one, becomes full of shoals during dry season and looks more like a lake than a river. Only in monsoon the whole of the Jamuna becomes one river. The film-maker, along with his crew, followed the course of the Jamuna on a boat towards downstream to reach where the Padma, another major river of the Indian sub-continent, has confluenced with the Jamuna. The film deals with the different aspects of the Jamuna river— its vastness, its erosion, its shoals, its fishes, and the most interesting aspect, the people living on its banks. The film contains a series of interviews with fishermen, farmers, weavers, boat-makers, folk-singers who all tell the impact of the Jamuna on their lives and their feelings about this mighty river. The interviewees include a veteran fisherman, a housewife, a folk-singer, a school-teacher and a small boy who sells egg in the ferries, all different people whose homesteads have been eroded by the Jamuna river. A journey-film and shot with an open-mind, the film-unit recorded what they experienced on their journey in one of the world's widest and most fascinating river—the Jamuna.