Guwahati, Aug. 19 -- Fifty years after its release, Padum Barua's Gonga Chilonir Pakhi (Feathers of the Tern) remains one of the most important milestones in Assamese cinema. Released in 1976, this pioneering black-and-white film was based on Lakshmi Nandan Bora's novel of the same name, first published in 1965. Produced and scored by Barua himself, the film departed sharply from the melodramatic conventions of popular cinema and helped establish a distinctive realist, arthouse tradition in Assam.

Set in post-independence rural Assam during the 1960s, the film centres on Basanti, a young woman whose life is transformed by widowhood. After the death of her husband Mathura, she begins to imagine a new life with Dhananjay, her former lover....