By Kaushik Nath
An Assamese feature film is set to reach audiences across Australia this month after being selected for exclusive streaming on the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne’s digital platform, IFFM365.
Jibonsobi, directed by Mridu Pawan Bora, will be available from May 15 at 10:00 AEST through June 14 at 22:00 AEST, giving viewers a full month to watch the 82-minute film at no cost. The platform runs on both Apple TV and Android devices. As of now, the movie is available in the platform Moviesaints as a paid content.
The film is based in Da-Gaon, a village in Assam that sits in the flood plains and carries the particular rhythm of rural Northeast India. The story follows two men, Domboru and Pobin, across years of friendship as modernisation and social change quietly alter the world around them. No single event drives the narrative. The film moves the way time actually moves, with things shifting slowly until you notice they have changed entirely. The river that runs through the village works as a quiet thread throughout, not as heavy symbolism but simply as part of the landscape these two men have always known. Director Mridu Pawan Bora also appears in the film himself.
Jibonsobi has collected recognition on the festival circuit over the past two years. It took Best Regional Film at the Cine Dreams International Film Festival in Mumbai in 2024 and Best Story at the Northeast India International Documentary and Film Festival, also held in Mumbai, in 2025. The film was additionally named a finalist at the 10th Brahmaputra Valley Film Festival in 2024.
The Melbourne selection marks its first major streaming run for an international audience. The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne has been one of the more consistent platforms for bringing Indian regional cinema to Australian audiences, and the IFFM365 digital arm extends that reach beyond the festival dates themselves. For a film like Jibonsobi, which comes from a corner of India that rarely sees its stories travel this far, the placement matters.
Northeast Indian filmmakers have for years worked with limited distribution infrastructure despite producing films that hold their own against anything coming out of larger industry centres. Jibonsobi is not a film built around spectacle or a high-concept premise. It works because of the patience behind the camera and the honesty with which it looks at two people living their lives in a place most of the world has never heard of.
That kind of filmmaking tends to find its audience slowly. A month-long free stream on a platform accessible across Australia is a reasonable opportunity for that to happen. As the submissions for this upcoming film festival is still going on, other budding filmmakers from Assam are eyeing for this coveted slot as well.
Mridupanwan Bora is an established Filmmaker, director, and screenwriter who is passionate about crafting compelling stories. He is known for works like Tun Rung Kham (2021) which acts as a docufilm based on Ahom History and Kenopsia Ek Anubhab (2020)
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