Tales from our childhood (Mukul Haloi) India |

Tales from our Childhood
Mukul Haloi
India. 69 min. 2018

What was it like to grow up in Assam in the 1990s and be squeezed between an insurgency and the Army? Mukul Haloi’s Tales from our childhood sets out to find out.

Made between 2016 and 2017, the documentary comprises shards of real and imagined memories of the battle between United Liberation Front of Assam militants and the Indian Army for the state’s soul. Apart from interviews with Haloi’s family members and friends, the 69-minute film includes staged sequences in which the director’s friend wears an ULFA uniform and poses as a rebel soldier.

MUKUL HALOI

Mukul Haloi studied Film Direction and Screenplay Writing at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). His short films ‘Days of Autumn’ and ‘A letter to home’ received five Indian awards including Best film at IDSFFK and Signs, Kerala.‘A letter to home’ was in International Competition at 27th Curtas Vila do Conde, Portugal. Most of his films emerge from his deeply personal and poetic remembrance of a lost past -a collective and political past. He received ‘Early Career Fellowship’ from TISS, Mumbai to make his debut feature documentary ‘Tales from our childhood’, which deals with his growing up during the violent Insurgency struggle in his home state Assam.It won ‘Bala Kailasam Award for Excellence in Documentary’ and was shown at Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival and Sibiu International Film Festival. Its is included in the coursework of ‘Modern Indian Studies’, Gottingen University; Germany. In 2017, he was invited to month long ‘Vision Splendid Outback Film-making Program’ organised by Griffith Film School, Australia. He has been writing short stories and essays in Assamese for more than 8 years. He is also teaching film and screenwriting at various independent workshops across the country.

MUKUL HALOI AT BERLINALE TALENTS

DIALOGUE WITH MUKUL HALOI