It was in 2014 that Sinjar, a province in Iraq, turned an IS killing field, the epicentre of unspeakable crimes. Thousands of Yazidi women tumbled to the mire of militancy, a life of starvation, slavery and rape sprees. When those who survived the deathtrap started talking, there were blood-curdling tales of tyranny and torture. Pampally, a scribe back then, says he was stunned by the scale of suffering, and that is how Sinjar , his debut feature film, was born. The film bagged two titles at the 65th National Film Awards — Best Debut Director and Best Jasari Film.
Sinjar follows Fida (Srinda) and Suhara (Mythili), two housemaids in Iraq who are taken hostages along with the Yazidi women. “They manage to flee the mountains after days of captivity and reach Lakshadweep, their homeland. But what awaits them is another nightmare, a society no better than than IS camps,” he says.
For Pampally, an award-winning short-filmmaker, setting the film in Kerala was an easy option, but he placed his story in Lakshadweep, a minuscule speck on the map. The director says he has reasons for that, “these two women, victims of global terrorism, come back to a very conservative island Muslim community. The theme will lose its impact if you transplant it to Kerala.” Since movies are ‘haram’ (taboo) on the island, filming turned out to be another task. “It took a while to convince the local people, but my regular trips to the place during the last four years helped. I wrapped up the shoot in 16 days and the islanders were very cooperative. It’s the first film to be completely shot on the island,” he says.
The film is made in Jasari, a language that lacks any script or syntax. “It’s an alloy of Malayalam, Tulu, Kannada and Arab, but no linguist has ever landed on the island to study it. While all elders still speak this dialect, the younger generation prefer Malayalam or English. I think very soon Jasari will become a part of Island history if we do nothing to preserve it. The film is also an attempt to revive the language,” he says.
