The farthest northeastern district of the country will soon be “integrated cinematically and culturally with the rest of India” as Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang is set to get its first cinema theatre on November 20. The heavily-fortified border district, which remains in limelight for face-offs with Chinese troops, will soon get a 80-seat theatre for a population of nearly 50,000 people.

“Jadooz, which targets small and remotest cities of the country, will open its first fully-air conditioned screen with a high-end virtual reality facility in Tawang. The theatre will not only be used for screening movies but will also double up as a platform for virtual teaching classes as each seat will have a cordless microphone and a camera for interactive sessions to bridge the education gap,” Rahul Nehra, founding managing director of startup Jadooz, which plans to open seven screens in Arunachal in coming years, told TOI.

It is quite an irony that Arunachal Pradesh, which is a treasure trove of cultural diversity and traditions and famous for monasteries, currently has just 3-4 small theatres, including one in Itanagar, but none in Tawang. In fact, Arunachal movie ‘Water Burial’, whose storyline was based on a dark ritual of a local tribe, won the best film award on environment conservation at the 67th National Films Awards 2021. In India, there are less than 10,000 single movie screens.