First impressions generally make lasting impressions. Though Miransha Naik’s first image one forms is of a shy person, behind it lays an extremely confident filmmaker, who has the capability to leave everyone spellbound through his craft.
Naik’s debut feature film Juze—a tale of a teenager student-labourer who stands against all atrocities of a local landlord—won accolades at the 41st Hong Kong International Film Festival and Czech Republican Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Apart from this, it was the only Konkani film in the Indian Panorama at the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2017 in Panaji, Goa. Naik is now looking forward to a Goan release in the coming months. But it was not an easy journey. It never is when one loses one’s parents at an early age, when one has to struggle with financial constraints.
“My financial condition made me drop out of college and join a beach-side restaurant. After working there as a waiter for four years, I saved enough money to start my own restaurant,” says the Goa-based director.
So when did filmmaking bug hit on? The smile on his face returns. “Initially, I didn’t have a television at home, so I would watch movies at a friend’s place. Later during the monsoon, when the business was slack, I got hooked on to watching world cinema. And yes, by then I had my own television,” Naik says, who has also produced and directed short films like Remember a Day, Ram and Xezari. Ram, a comedy film about a young boy’s journey to losing his virginity, won praises.
The foreign films broadened his vision and he decided to do a course in script writing. “So I enrolled myself in two-year course at Subhash Ghai’s Whistling Woods in Mumbai. My film Juze was scripted there as part of an assignment,” says Naik, who claims he is always drawn to realistic cinema.
An India-France-Netherlands co-production, Juze was noticed in 2015, when it was selected for mentoring and promotion during Film Bazaar—the annual filmmaking lab organised by the National Film Development Cooperation (NFDC) in Goa. “But it got stuck due to insufficient post-production funds,” says Naik. “Then we sent it to the NFDC’s film lab, where we met our mentors and our French and Dutch producers.”
Asked, where he sees himself five years from now, he says, “Very much in Goa, making Goan films that will appeal to the world.” About the film scene in Goa , he says, “Frankly, it’s very bad. Ours is a new industry. We had a lot of problems getting the cast for the film. Not many responded to the audition. So we had to train the actors as they were new to acting. But after the success of Nachom-ia Kumpasar, the film scene here has started to change.” With boundless passion, Naik is a beacon of inspiration for the youth.