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A still from the film Kothanodi

Stories of motherhood have always interested filmmakers but when Bhaskar Hazarika set out to scout for a narrative for his debut feature film, he wanted to present shades that remain veiled. “I set out to make a film that is dark and engaging, to explore the morbid sub themes in fairy tales and folklores,” says the Delhi-based filmmaker. A fortnight after his film Kothanodi: The River of Fables premiered at the Busan Film Festival on October 3, it will be screened at the 59th London Film Festival on October 17.

Starring National Award-winner Seema Biswas, Adil Hussain, popular Assamese actors Zerifa Wahid and Kopil Bora among others, the film weaves together four stories from Burhi Aair Sadhu, a compilation of Assamese folktales by Sahityarathi Lakshminath Bezbaroa. Each segment depicts a different shade of motherhood — if one has a mother getting her daughter married to a python and in the process killing her, another has a schizophrenic stepmother murdering her daughter. A wife protects her newborn daughter from her husband, who wants to kill her, and a woman gives birth to an outenga (elephant apple), who follows her everywhere.

Shot on the Majuli island and along the riverbanks of Dergaon, the background score of the film has been sourced from recordings by Padmashree Birendra- nath Datta and Ramen Choudhury of music of the various tribes and communities in Assam.

While he awaits the reviews for the film, Hazarika is onto his next — an adaptation of stories by Edgar Allen Poe. “It should be fun,” says the 40-year-old, who co-directed Live from Peepli.