Basundhara

Wild elephants in the forest country around Sundarpur keep attacking the village. Basundhara, a young NGO activist reeling from her fiance's infidelity, arrives to change the villagers' attitude to conservation, but her first meeting is a fiasco.

She meets Arjun, a local journalist, who shows her that a large stretch of forest has been cleared for illegal ivory and timber trafficking and a stone quarry run by the forest contractor and local mafia boss Bikash Barua with the help of corrupt officials. That is why the elephants are being driven into the village. Basundhara forms a team of young volunteers, some of them former employees of Barua, and starts welfare work.

Arjun publishes a report exposing Barua's network at her insistence. Her mother dies under mysterious circumstances in the city, and Basundhara receives threats, but she stays. When elections draw near, the dishonest ranger is transferred and an honest officer arrives to help her gather the proof that finally exposes Barua.

Hiren Bora directed and produced the film, with a screenplay by Sagar Sangam Sarkar, Birinchi Kumar Medhi and Bora himself. Barsha Rani Bishaya plays the title role, with Saurabh Hazarika, Bishnu Kharghoria, Iftekar Ahmed and Prithviraj Rabha in other main parts. The music is by Tarali Sarma.

Basundhara won the Best Feature Film in Assamese award at the 57th National Film Awards for 2009.

It remains a leading example of Assamese cinema engaging with a pressing environmental problem, years before conservation became a mainstream theme in regional film.