All of 25 years, Aditya Jambhale is in the
news for all the right reasons. At an age when most youngsters are puzzled
about their career path, Aditya, after winning the National Film Award for Best
Direction, now feels that he has got the acknowledgement for having made the
right career choice. For the uninitiated, Goa won two awards at the recently
held 64th National Film Awards. While Goan film ‘K Sera Sera’ won Best Konkani
Film, Marathi short film ‘Aaba Aiktaay
Naa?’ competed with around 357 entries in the general category that
included films featuring renowned names such as Shoojit Sircar, Tisca Copra,
Spruha Joshi, etc. In the end, this young Goan writer-director from Ponda
walked away with the award for Best Direction for his debut film project.
Aditya’s journey into filmmaking started
with theatre, which, in turn, began while studying at Goa Engineering College
(GEC) in Farmagudi, Ponda a few years ago. While earning his degree in
Electronics Engineering, Aditya’s love and keen interest in theatre saw him
form a theatre group with his friends, called ‘GEC Drama Circle’, which is
being continued by his juniors at the college now. It was here that Aditya
wrote and directed one-act plays that tasted success and catapulted him into
what is considered to be the Mecca of Marathi theatre – Pune, and Mumbai.
In places like Mumbai and Pune,
inter-collegiate theatre competitions assume insane amounts of seriousness.
These are breeding grounds for the next generation of actors, writers and
directors for the theatre and film industry. Aditya and team participated in
one of the most prestigious and fiercely fought inter-collegiate theatre
competitions – Sakal Mahakarandak – and competed with around 250-300 colleges
from Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The original play, based on the life of a
eunuch, was written and directed by Aditya and went on to create history by
winning the first prize at the competition. Next up was ‘Savai Karandak’, an
open competition for colleges and independent theatre groups alike, where
another original plays written and directed by Aditya featured in the top seven,
becoming the first Goan team ever to achieve the feat. Aditya followed it up
with his next play, ‘Vande Mataram’, that had a strong backdrop of India’s
freedom struggle and won accolades all over. The feedback and satisfaction was
good enough to convince Aditya to quit his job as a security analyst with a
cybersecurity firm and pursue filmmaking.
Aditya penned down the script for ‘Aaba…’ while studying filmmaking and the
plan was to shoot the film with minimal resources and wrap it up within a
budget of Rs 50,000. A chance discussion with veteran Marathi actor Arun Nalawade
resulted in Aditya narrating the script to him. It was Nalawade who insisted
that Aditya should take the more serious route and give the script the
professional touch that it deserved. Nalawade was so taken in by the script
that he agreed to work pro bono, considering that the team was battling budget
constraints.
The team roped in Nalawade and actors from
Goan theatre groups and the film was shot across 4-5 days in Goa. The
post-production process followed and, according to Aditya, this was the most demanding
phase. This was where a few fiascos and mistakes not only extended the post
production process but also strained the budget. But the team knew that they
had the best people for the job.
Aditya says, “Sound is an important
character in the film and we knew that it could make or break the film.
Therefore, it demanded a ‘sound’ person for the job. We got Rohit Pradhan, who
has worked on acclaimed films such as ‘Yellow’, ‘Timepass 2’, etc to work on
the sound design. Similarly, we roped in Satish Patil to do the editing.”
Furthermore, the team convinced Justin Jose, touted to be the best in India
currently, to work on sound mixing. Jose has worked on innumerable big-budget
Bollywood films such as ‘Baahubali’, ‘Bajirao Mastani’, ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, to
name a few.
Ask Aditya about how the team managed to
get the most skilled, despite budget constraints, and he smiles. He says,
“Things just happened. This is a film that truly demanded the expertise of
their respective skills, and these wise men knew that. When they were working
on the film, it wasn’t our film anymore, it was ‘their’ film.”
While the attention that Aditya is getting
post his victory is enough to throw any youngster off balance, Aditya is
maintaining a calm composure knowing that it has been a team effort. Aditya
says, “I have an enviable team of 7-8 people who are my backbone. If the team
had not stuck together through all the struggles, ‘Aaba Aiktaay Naa?’ wouldn’t have been a product worthy of a
national award. My team deserves as much recognition as I do.”
The young lad is already busy with his next
project. Aditya is currently in the writing phase of a period drama that is
going to be made into a full-fledged Konkani feature film. The young director
is targeting to have the film playing in theatres within a year’s time.
Acche
Din for Goan cinema seem to have finally arrived!