Rhythm of Dammam

Rhythm of Dammam is a formally ambitious and urgently vital feature that marks a cinematic first, offering an unprecedented look at the Siddi community in India—a African diasporic pocket in India descended from enslaved Bantu peoples. The film avoids the didacticism of a historical document, centering the narrative through the psychic crisis of twelve-year-old Jayaram Siddi, whose reality is fractured by an ancestral haunting.

The director, Jayan Cherian, is an acclaimed filmmaker whose work, including the award-winning Papilio Buddha (2013) and the politically charged Ka Bodyscapes (2016), is known for its unflinching exploration of marginalized struggles and social commitment. Cherian utilizes Jayaram’s affliction as a direct metaphorical channel to the intergenerational trauma inherited from centuries of oppression.

Visually and aurally immersive, the film elevates the community’s devotional Dammam music into a driving structural and spiritual force. Its intense, percussive rhythms serve as a path to healing that permeates the film’s sound design. This is a critically validated work, premiering at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) and featuring in the International Competition section at the IFFK. It is essential viewing for its artistic dexterity and its rare, unflinching look at post-colonial memory and the profound resilience found within an often-unseen global diaspora.

USA/India, 2024, 92 mins, drama in Kannada, Urdu (with English subtitles), Jayan Cherian, dir. 

"Jayan Cherian's film blends realism with surrealism to produce a strikingly vivid image of the Siddi community's intergenerational trauma." ~ The News Minute

"an exceptionally evocative, visually arresting film." ~ NDTV Movies