Paltadacho Munis fails to attract crowd in Vasco

VASCO, MAY 21
It may have been an internationally acclaimed Konkani movie and its director may have been a son of the soil, yet the award-winning ‘Paltadacho Munis’ (The Man Beyond the Bridge) struggled to find takers in the port town.
On the very first day of its release in Vasco, hometown of director Laxmikant Shetgaonkar, barely seven-odd viewers were there to watch the film at the ‘El-Monte’ on Friday.
Various reasons are being attributed to the poor turnout – lack of publicity, lack of interest in regional moves in the port town and a reluctance to visit the ‘El-Monte’ due to limited infrastructure. “The film has been not publicized along the lines of other Bollywood movies,” said theater manager Francis.
“A daily show is being screened at 10 am and the film will be screened for one week, which incidentally is in the neighborhood of Shetgaokar at Bogda.”
He informed that the response to regional films has been dismal. “Only a few people turn up to watch regional films. Recently, two Marathi film were screened and they had an average turnout. Two years ago, the Konkani movie ‘Padri’ was also screened and this too had only an average turnout,” said the theatre manager.
He was, however, optimistic that ‘Paltadacho Munis’ could attract a larger audience within the next few days. “It’s too early to comment on such an internationally acclaimed movie, since people are not aware that it was released today,” said Francis. ‘Paltadacho Munis’ is a film that captures loneliness, compassion and the eternal struggle against bigotry.
The film has won awards and praise all over the world and it was chosen to be the Best Narrative Feature from among several Indian and other films at the 8th annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.
The first-ever Konkani film to have won the International Film Critics Federation (FIPRESCI) prize for Discovery at the Toronto international film festival in 2009, the film was also listed as one of the 101 best films of the world to have released in 2009 in the ‘Films 101’ database.
Besides being the opening film in Indian Panorama section at IFFI 2009, ‘Paltadacho Munis’ was also listed in the competition sections at other prestigious international film festivals in Mumbai, Pune, Palm Springs (USA), Cairo and Hong Kong.