Is Goa telling its stories (in film)?

Where's Goa's film culture?  You'd almost think it doesn't exist.  Local theatres hardly screen Konkani (or locally-produced) films.  Some of the best Konkani films were actually made in Bombay, and that too in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s.

In a word, Goan film is quite invisible.  Someone commented on one of the discussion groups online: "So lovely [to learn of this].  Been curious about films from Goa." This is sad, because quite a bit is actually happening on the ground, and yet there seems to be a visibility problem somewhere.  It may be a question of critical mass.  Goa is small and its films are few.

Last weekend, the Panjim-based centre for the arts Sunaparanta screened half-a-dozen documentary and short films, focussing on Goa, and made by people from the region.  These included films discussing Goan bread, adolescent sexuality, male-female love in a world of same-sex couples, a house-breaker who watches women as they sleep ("based on a true story"), urban memories from Panjim, and a centenary-old Goan club from Tanzania.

Obviously, Goa has its stories, the talent to capture and tell those stories, and enough enthusiastic filmmakers who can represent the State's multiple diversities.

For ages, Bollywood has been representing Goa, and most here have been outraged by this unflattering portrayal.  Deepa Gahlot, the writer on film, and Robert S Newman, the anthropologist (see his essay "Goa Goes To The Movies") have argued in detail about the stereotyped and cliched manner in which this tiny region has been depicted in Hindi film. A closer study of Hollywood, and the few movies it has made on Goa, would reveal shades of the same.

So, it is reassuring to see the new crop of film-makers determined to boost creativity on this region, in a way that reflects the reality they know well. Some like Sonia Filinto and Ronak Kamat, live and work out of Mumbai/Bombay.

There is hardly any money (for most) in making films for a small market like Goa. Nonetheless, Goa's younger crop of film-makers have gone ahead in creating films on this place.  In some cases, studying in film-school has helped them.  For a couple of films, Netflix has opened up avenues.

Yash Sawant, cinematographer of the short-film 'Bare' (who also directed 'A Cold Summer Night') says: "(Youngsters in Goan films) are growing.  Support to make film, and State-funding is crucial.  That would need very little money." "If Goa could make one feature film and two short films each year, it would add up in five years.  If the government funds this, it could make a change," he adds.

Ronak Kamat, has four films to his credit, including two documentaries ('Kazu', and another on the artist Vamona Navelcar).  His film 'Bare' is about a person known for sneaking into into women's apartments, and watching them as they sleep.  After the 'Me Too' movement, Kamat says he noticed people disbelieving the complaints coming up on such fronts, and hence made a film about the news he had read.

Kamat says there's s a "big part of me that wants to tell Goan stories, and that I don't want to stop...People were not telling those stories.  There's a lens through which others look at Goa.  It's the place where you can drink and chill and have fun.  That exists too.  But nobody told the stories (that we grew up with)." Goa has a lot of stories, as he puts it.

Suyash Kamat, a Master's student at the Satyajit Ray Film Institute in Kolkata, created a film out of "an act of remembering".  His second film was a grant given by Netflix, for a ten-minute short film.  Out of ten Indians, two selected were from Goa, Barkha Naik and Kamat himself.  Kamat's second film was shot at Marcel, Miramar, Siridao, and the like.

Nalini Elivino de Sousa, who has done a lot of work in film, says: "Wherever there are Goans, there is a club.  But this one [in Dar es Salaam] has completed a hundred years.  It is still active.  In Tanzania, Dar is the only one [club] standing, and there is hope." She explains how expat Goans Mervyn Lobo and Judy Luis Watson helped her get access to rare and "invaluable" video footage and photographs.

Nalini is studying at the Aveiro University, and she started with the gramophone records at All India Radio.  She found that 90% of the recordings were connected with the 'tiatr' and she decided to focus on the 'cantaram'.  She chose three composers Remmie Colaco, C Alvares and Jacinto Vaz, and is hoping that by the end of this year she has her dissertation and a movie as well. Other films, like the Miransha Naik's Ram, was shot almost a decade ago, and still draws attention for its rare approach to the topic it chose (adolescent sexuality).

'The First Wedding' (by Akshay Parvatkar, 2020) flips on its head, as it were, the bias against same-sex romance.  Filinto's on 'Bread and Belonging' (to be screened again at the XCHR on Feb 8, 2023 evening) is about traditions, micro businesses, social change, migration, the struggle at the grassroots, and a lot more. Suyash Kamat's 'Written in the Corners' (2020) is an interesting rework of some old footage, and the story of a restaurant with an unusual reputation in Panjim.

Unless Goa builds up the audiences to watch or discuss and critique such work, what incentive do the film-makers have?  Even finding access to affordable screening venues can be tough.  Some creative thinking is surely needed on this front, if Goa is to get ahead with its next step.