With two screenings in Goa, Sonia Filinto is excited about the third screening of her film, ‘Bread & Belonging’ at Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim, today, February 8, at 6.30 pm. This 50-minute film encapsulates the essence of how the soft and crackling bread reaches every Goan table on a daily basis and yet the bread makers are going through a process of changing culture and the challenge to keep this traditional occupation going.
What made Sonia think about the bread?
“There is a lot of association that we can make with bread. The demand is
higher but as the traditional bread is changing a void is created and this void
is filled. This traditional occupation is a trade which is labour intensive and
yet being creating by hand adds beauty to it.”
The crew for making the documentary was
very small as Sonia wanted the bakers to be comfortable with their work. Her
crew included Saumyananda Sahi, cinematographer, Christopher Burchell, location
sound and Rikhav Desai, editor. “The film shows the representatives of all the
bakeries that were visited, formally and casually. After going through what we
felt was important to highlight through the film, we zeroed in on these three
stories. The migrants take the bakeries from the owners and run it 365 days of
the year. However, the traditional bakeries were run for three to four months
by one member of the family and then the next months would be run by some other
member. This was the reasoning by the Portuguese, maybe because it was a labour
intensive trade. But this system brings its own challenges, as it gets
difficult to get labour and then let them go,” she explains.
Do the younger generation want to continue
with the traditional occupation? “After one of my screenings, a young girl
walked up to be after the Q&A round and told me that she comes from a
family that ran a bakery. She said that through the film, she was able to
understand her family better. This really moved me. People always want a better
life and baking is very labour intensive. Youngsters might not see a career
that is growing or trending for them and they might not find it economically
profitable. However, there are some young bakers who are trying out more
options that just baking bread at the bakery,” answers Sonia.
Directed by Sonia Filinto and produced by Mamta Murthy, the film
was shot for a few months and then took a break for crowdfunding. Sonia was
overwhelmed with the crowdfunding response, “The most heartening part was that
the majority of funders were people who I didn’t know. They were the people who
had the conscious to put in their funds which greatly helped in completing the
film.”
Born and brought up in Calangute, Sonia studied at St Xavier’s
College, Mapusa, before moving to Mumbai to learn about film making. She now
dedicates her time to working on non-fiction films and freelances as a producer
for television, films and OTT platforms. Her works for People's Archive of
Rural India (PARI) includes photo features like ‘Bhadels of Goa,’ ‘The Coconut
Pluckers of Goa,’ and ‘Arambol’s first family of Feni’. In 2013, she also
directed a documentary, ‘Shifting Sands and Changing Tides’ on her village,
Calangute. “Though ‘Shifting Sands’ was a long time back, I recently saw a
revival in the interest in the film. The work for PARI was much later,”
explains Sonia.
The format of short films is still developing not just in Goa
but in India too. As a short film maker, Sonia has the opportunity to interact
with the audience and follow the trend of how the short film culture can be
developed. “There is a very strong culture for short films in India but apart
from film festivals, there are not screened very frequently. When watching
films, people are with the idea of value for money and short films have to be
clubbed with something else for the viewers. Short films is a great storytelling
format which is made with a short time frame. It is a wonderful format to be
made and viewed. It is important to inculcate a viewing habit in the audience,”
says Sonia.
‘Bread
& Belonging’ was a part of the Kirti Club based in Delhi which organised a
2022 hybrid film festival and followed the module which was created by many
film festivals during the pandemic. The film was available for screening in the
month of December for a limited period of time and received a great response.
“Online screenings make the content accessible for a wider audience. You can
pause the video and do something and get back to the film. But for a screening,
you have to give full attention to the film and as a film maker, I would live
to connect with the audience and see their reactions as the film is being
screened,” says Sonia, as she looks forward to today’s screening at the XCHR,
Porvorim.