In Person: Chaware by Jhansy Giting Dokgre Marak

Jhansy Giting Dokre Marak’s film Chaware (Son-in-Law, 2023) looks at the experience of a young man who moves in to live with his wife’s family after the wedding, following the matrilineal and uxorilocal norms of Garo society. Yet the protagonist is not able to settle into his new home as fears and anxieties about his own mother continue to plague him. Weaving together snatches of conversation and interactions within a family, the burden of expectations upon the newlyweds—from each other and well as everyone else—plays out through the film. The new unit of the family is established through encounters around food and tea, as it symbolises care and comfort. Marak’s storytelling is imbued with a quiet sense of confidence as she explores gender roles and the family tensions that sometimes exist just beneath the surface. Offering a slice of life, Chaware captures the first few days of the married couple’s lives with its ups and downs and newfound vulnerabilities.

Following the premiere of her film at the Dharamshala International Film Festival, Marak speaks about why she wanted to make this film, her process and research, understanding what it means to be a part of a matrilineal society, the importance of food in all communities, her wish to make films for her own community and her experience of screening the film at DIFF.

Jhansy Giting Dokgre Marak has completed a Postgraduate Certificate Course in TV Direction from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.

(Featured Image: Still from Chaware [2023] by Jhansy Giting Dokgre Marak. Image courtesy of the director.)

Recorded on 9 November 2024.

To learn more about DIFF 2024, read Mallika Visvanathan’s interview with the founders Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam and watch the previous episode of In Person with Udit Khurana as he discusses his film Taak (2024).