MONDAY, MAY 06, 2024
Ajit John
The moving image has the potential to inspire or shock or even surprise the viewer. Its creator should have a vision before creating those images. That vision can be enriched by one’s imagination that has been fed by one’s background or the location one is based in or it could be an incident that may have occurred in one’s life.
Goa with its beautiful landscape, its music and dance provides a fascinating background. It can inspire one’s imagination. Some of the country’s most interesting artists and writers live in Goa. And one can also add, film makers live in Goa. The latest Goan to catch the eye is Sainath Uskaikar. He has written and directed a non- fiction documentary short film called Gotho. It’s a ‘film letter’ written to his grandmother Sunila Uskaikar from Pune. The film uses phone conversations recorded over a year between him and grandmother as a voiceover.
The short film produced by the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune was made for the princely sum of Rs 15000. Speaking to this journalist in the Herald office a day prior to leaving for Pune to complete the post production of his next movie he said this was a journey and he hoped he could one day make a feature length movie in Konkani.
He looked excited, the young filmmaker as he said his movie would be having its world premiere at the 15th International Documentary and Short film festival in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The young man is not some babe in the woods. Last year, he directed a short film that was also made in Goa which was sent to the Short film corner at the Cannes film festival. It was also selected for the Indian Panorama.
The short documentary called Gotho means cow shelter which is made in Konkani. It is essentially a journey around Polem district with voice recordings of the director and his grandmother. He had two or three hours of recording which was done over a year. This was the first time he was leaving home and he realised, this would be a fantastic record given that old people could leave anytime. It also includes a story of his grandfather who went missing and prayers were said and he returned him. His grandmother had several such stories which were fascinating. He said, “ I realised these conversations were amazing, the inspiration for this film came from a film made by a VJ called Bear which is made by the great documentary maker Pankaj Rishikumar. That film inspired me to get into this kind of form where it is very personal. In it you put details of my father, details of her dead sons, details of my nightmares, and my insecurities as a film student. All this was coming in those call recordings”. It is about stripping the superficial and standing nude in front of everyone”.
He revealed he had inhibitions as to how close one could go to one’s subject. There is an element of voyeurism there, he said. There is also a matter of ethics as to how much one can scrape off a subject. At the end of it all one was profiting from it all. He said he was handling different subjects for the documentary and this was my only documentary made by FTI which was paid by them. There was no producer to question why something was in it or not in it. He had an open field all to himself and he decided to go all the way. Shot in colour, it has some archival footage of a wedding in the 90’s. There was also archival footage shot in Merces and of his grandmother and the kalotsav. He took permission from all the people including his grandmother before he made them part of the documentary. Sainath laughed and said his grandmother after watching the film asked him if he had earned any money from it. He said he was the first from his family to get into the film line so to speak and he said making a film was always a political act. He said it was not what people generally thought of like actors and actresses. The director was putting out his point of view.
The film will have its world premiere in Kerala and he hopes it will be shown in Goa after it is selected for the Panorama section at the Indian Film festival held every year. It has been sent by FTI. The documentary’s technical crew include DoP - Vishesh Gandhi , Editor - Chinmay Wagh and sound by Madhav Patil. He felt several films were sent and it was difficult to make the cut but if it did it would be just fantastic.
He is now going to Pune having shot another short film in Marathi shot in Sanvordem featuring all Goan Konkani actors with the whole technical team from FTI. It is about a musician making a sound which cannot be recognised by anyone and he is on his deathbed. The whole family is puzzled as to what that sound is. It is about solving the mystery as to what that sound is. It is called The Heart Entangles in English.
Speaking about the state of Konkani cinema, he bemoaned the absence of a distribution network. He would like to make a feature length film in Konkani and he said OTT was the only road to survival. He hopes to achieve his dreams sometime in the future.
