“Koro Gochongni” (Echoes Within) is a diary film intended to rebuild the severed connection between myself and my ancestral tribal identity as an indigenous Koch woman. The film serves as an excuse to construct my lost identity, which now remains at a distance, perforated with nostalgia and an imagined sense of belongingness. Without any visual memory of my grandmother, whom I've never met, I am searching for her through the stories of my father, as well as the women of the community whom I refer to as, Aja, Anung, and Abu. They live in a matrilineal society in the remote villages of the North Eastern borderland of India.
The project aims to delve into the nuances of gender and indigeneity, exploring their impacts on the psychology of a young queer woman as she asserts her identity and expresses moments of angst, confusion, and certainty about her desires. This identity has been erased from her lived experience by powerful patriarchal and majoritarian religious structures throughout history, manifested through multiple waves of Sanskritization in India, ultimately pushing towards a homogenized Hindu identity with the loss of the tribal language, culture, culinary tradition, and animistic faith systems.
The formal aspects of the film attempt to supplement the bridge between the lived, imagined, and borrowed as it navigates through the personal and collective memory of the community, which has been pushed towards amnesia of their tribal roots.