Konkani ki kahaani, Konkani ki zubaani

Wersquore angry saints nowWe will change the destiny of everything and everyoneNot to live like sudhirsBut to live like human beingsYes we are the bravest of mankindWe are sudhirsThese lines are from the haunting Konkani poem at the end of the Goan Konkani short film Hanging by a Thread which was screened at the Goa Open Arts Festival from this weekendAkshay Parvatkar PicNimesh DaveWriterdirector Akshay Parvatkar and few others like him are being heralded as emerging avant garde filmmakers speaking not just for and to Goa but to anyone who wants to experience cinema and not watch it The film will soon be released on YouTube in the next few months and was short between 2022 and 2023 The thrust of the 20minuteshort film is about how a young boy who wants to play football with his best friend and the struggle when older boys donrsquot allow it because he is a nonsavarna The poem is recited in Konkani by the footballerrsquos mother who tells him to go back to the field reminding him that wearing a knotted thread doesnrsquot determine onersquos talent and futureParvatkar who hails from Povorim a mere nine kilometers away from Panjim is a trained engineer ldquoI didnrsquot know how to tell my mother that I wanted to pursue something to do with photographyrdquo he says Still pictures were his gateway drug into the world of films and cinema ldquoI lost my father in the summer before my Class X exams My uncle came down from Dubai then and as it was also around my birthday he got me a camera My father too loved to click and it was a family that liked to photograph our important momentsrdquoMangirish J Banodkar borrowed money from his uncle to make Shivnar a loan he hasnrsquot yet paid off The engineer turned screenwriterdirector moved to Vakola in 2019 right after he graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India FTII ldquoI applied for the oneyear screenplay course and surprisingly got inrdquo says Partvakar talking to us over the phone His journey led to him putting out a tweet on X asking for funding for a short film and in a fortunate twist of fate he got a call ldquoIt was a BritishGoan who wanted to support an artist from the place her family came fromrdquo Her only condition was that he make the film in Konkani ldquoIt was pure luck Yes I wonrsquot deny that at allrdquo he confesses in an admissionchuckleIt may sound innocent enough but Parvatkar reacts this way because the lack of funding for Konkani films has forever been as issue Itrsquos a reality for many lesserknown budding filmmakers like Manguirish J BandodkarMangirish J BanodkarBandodkar who also has an engineering diploma moved on to study film in Vinsan Academy for film and media in Panjim He rues the lack of support from the government as he speaks to us from his home in He reveals gets a lot of requests for entries from filmmakers like him but no one has heard back for a while This is even more worrying as the government has largely been managing Goarsquos marquee film festival the International Film Festival of India IFFI ldquoIdeally if they like it they give a grant but no one including me has ever heard back Most of us are selffundedrdquo he saysBandodkar who has shown his short films on the festival circuits and has hoped to get funding and recognition says he has not been lucky yet ldquoI will be shooting my next short film in April this year But I have the minimum funding which will form the starting money The rest will come from my freelance work I am open to anyone coming forward and funding this film You never know someone might read your article and reach out to merdquo he asks hopefullySuyash Kamat feels that Netflix picking up his film Sadabahar Stills is the best thing that has happened to his careerMaking a conscious decision to stay back in Goa Bandodkar says he has never made enough money to even pay back his uncle who invested in Shivnar a 12andahalfminute labour of love he made in 2019 the year he graduated He owes his uncle R5 lakh and is now too embarrassed to ask him or anyone in the family for any moreBoth Bandodkar and Parvatkar say that the lack of funding mainly comes from the concerns that there are not enough Konkani audiences to watch their movies ldquoWith Marathi investors know what kind of numbers to expect but with Konkani they are a bit hesitant because there are not as many speakers of the languagerdquo says Parvatkar This even as the 2011 census showed around nineandahalflakh GoanKonkani speakers The numbers though the filmmakers say havenrsquot inspired a lot of confidence among the Hindi film industrySuyash KamatldquoThe only place I can see where Konkani movies can be featured is in the OTT space We just need one breakthrough thererdquo says filmmaker Suyash Kamat who started off his journey with the littleknown short film Written in the Corners He then shot to fame when he got selected by Netflix to make his short filmmdashSadhabahar Stills back in 2022 ldquoThat Netflix money exposure and technical sophistication is the greatest thing that happened to me in my entire careerrdquo While Written in the Corners is about the loss of Panjimrsquosonce very famous Prakash Cafe Sadabahar Hills talks about the current conflict that Goa is facing where the local population is losing out jobs to those coming in from other states a theme we all are quite familiar with in Mumbai Kamat is currently finishing up the last leg of a degree at the Satyajit Ray Film amp Television Institute ldquoThere is no structured way of funding like we see in Mumbai Most government schemes are dormant and have not been executed for a long time Right now the question asked by producers ismdashDo I have a market here How many people watch movies Here people go for these plays called lsquotaitrrsquo The lack of government intervention to answer these questions means that we will have to generate this demand and nurture it and this will take timerdquo