Sama in the Forest

Carlos G. Gomez

2023 / 75 minutes
India

Winner: Best Feature
Recognizes the film longer than forty-five minutes that best embodies the ethnographic inquiry and cinematic craft celebrated through the festival.

This hybrid documentary is set in contemporary Mithila, where a rich cultural identity extends from the mythical past into a globalized present. Maithil subjectivity is promulgated in part through its renowned painting tradition, as well as through its lesser known wealth of orally transmitted folktales. Women play a central role in both of these expressions. In a creative collaboration with local community members, we highlight the tale of Sama, a young princess who wanders into the forest and befriends a young man, only to be slandered by a muckraking confidante of the king, and subsequently cursed and banished by her father to the chagrin of her devoted brother. The film combines footage of women telling different versions of the tale, narrative paintings, a dramatization of the story, a yearly festival that celebrates Sama, and in-depth conversations about the morals and meanings of this and other traditional tales.The girls and women at the heart of our film are students and teachers at the Mithila Art Institute, a small school for young aspiring artists. Other participants, community members of different genders, castes, and generations, help paint a fuller picture of the complex social changes happening in Mithila today.