Laxmikant Shetgaonkar’s message to the world is loud: his native Goa has more than scenic beauty and the feni drink to offer. The young director’s Konkani film, Paltadacho Munis, is showing in the ongoing MAMI festival in Mumbai, after coming back from the recent Toronto International Film Festival, where it won rave reviews — and a prize too.
Paltadacho Munis (‘The Man Beyond the Bridge’) is Shetgaonkar’s debut film, lightly based on the work of Goan writer Mahabaleshwar Sail. It essays a tale of romance between a forest ranger and a mentally ill woman even as he gets over the memories of his dead wife. They live their lives in isolation in a densely foliated stretch of the Western Ghats — until the inevitability of getting accepted back into the village community takes them over. An unconventional love story, it has many facets with a deeper underlying message of exploitation of the tribal Velips living in the woods.
At Toronto this September, the 96-minute movie won the prestigious FIPRESCI Prize in the Discovery section. This week, it’s in MAMI’s competition section, matching its might with the best of movies from 56 countries across the globe.
“Far from the sensory overload of India’s big cities, it explores smaller but enduring dilemmas,’’ noted the jury in Toronto that chose his film for the critics trophy. ‘‘Shetgaonkar, immersed in the culture of the region, tells his tale with grace and attentiveness, taking the village traditions and beliefs seriously, while casting a jaundiced eye on those who exploit them.”
Heartening words from the discerning, but Shetgaonkar remains healthily unaffected about them. “It shows an international acceptance of pictures with an Indian content,” shrugs the admirer of Satyajit Ray, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Girish Kasaravalli. “Yes, it’s a moral boost to me, my technicians and the film community overall.”
The filmmaker notes it took him “long years of struggle” to even get his script
approved from the government’s film-funding agencies. He had to “waste a lot of time and energy chasing government and private people to look at the script for funding”
before the camera eventually got rolling.
What with Goa having “no film culture of its own” and screening committees being made up of “non-cinema background officials”, Shetgaonkar found it tough to take the picture in his home turf. This, despite his background as an alumnus of the
National School of Drama and a track record of shooting quality, award-winning documentaries. Finally, help came in from an outside agency: the NFDC financed and produced the entire venture.
The bitter-sweet experience has made Shetgaonkar determined to promote Goan cinema. He now plans to make more films in Konkani with the intention of developing it as a local industry, involving own people. “I’m proud of the language. I’d love presenting it on the silver screen,” he gushes, even as he agrees that good films have a universal language.
“Scope or no scope,” he adds, “more films have to be made in regional languages. After all, one feels most comfortable in films of native language.” As for Paltadacho Munis, it was shot in a surprisingly short time: about two months. The long pre-production stage ensured everything went as per plan.
Notes lead actor Chittaranjan Giri, a UP-ite: “For this picture I avoided hotels. I stayed in the forests (of Goa-Karnataka border) to get into the skin of the character. Laxmi took special pains to get a local to teach me Konkani.” Actress Prashanti Talpankar, a Goan, notes she initially visualised her role differently. “My director had something else in mind, and managed to bring the best out of me.”
Shetgaonkar earlier worked for successful television serials, but doing soaps “never appealed” to his sensibilities. “I feel in the power of films. By power, I mean not earning large sums of money, but their impact.” Shetgaonkar is proving it right himself.
— The writer is a freelance journalist based in
Bhubaneswar. sho_tap@yahoo.co.in