Goa’s villages and beaches make great locales for films, but the State itself produces just a handful of movies every year, mostly in Konkani and the odd one in Marathi. The number has gone up after the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) moved to Goa in 2004, although it took a good 59 years after the first Konkani film was made in 1950 for Goa’s regional language films to make a mark globally.

Paltodcho Munis (The Man Across the Bridge) directed by Laxmikant Shetgaonkar won the FIPRESCI prize in the Discovery section at Toronto International Film Festival in 2009, giving it a special place in the annals of Konkani cinema.

Just a decade later, how many even remember the film? How far could it travel even within the country?

Ten years ago, social media was nascent, not even a fraction of what it is now. As a result, the film, made in a language not widely spoken outside the Konkan coast, didn’t reach as many people as it might would have today were it to win a prize.

Crossing hurdles

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make a film like that today; it took a lot of effort back then,” says Shetgaonkar, who made Baga Beach in 2015 and is all set to launch his next, Bhavarth, a period drama. Paltadcho Munis was rejected by by the Goan government’s film finance body and was finally produced by National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). “I wrote the film in 2002 but we started shooting as late as 2008 after a lot of hurdles,” recalls the director. Eventually, it went on to become the opening film of the Indian Panorama at IFFI and made it to several other festivals including Berlinale and MAMI.

It was the young director’s debut feature (he had made an impressive tele-film, Eka Sagar Kinare in 2004), based on a story by a well-known literary figure, Mahabaleshwar Sail.

Paltadcho Munis represents cinema, particularly regional cinema, in its truest spirit. It is set in Goa’s hinterland and the story is propelled through visuals and sounds; dialogue is minimal.

The nuanced and thought-provoking story revolves around Vinayak (Chittranjan Giri), a forest guard who is a widower and lives a reclusive and solitary life in the forest. He meets a mentally unstable woman (played by the talented but underrated Veena Jamkar), and gradually a unique bond begins to develop between the two. However, Paltadcho Munis is about more than just these two people. There is a socio-political and religious undercurrent to the narrative. An aspiring village politician, along with the local priest, manages to sway religious sentiments about building a temple on forest land. “The land belongs to the government,” says one villager. “But our ancestors were here long before governments were formed,” comes the counter.

In another scene, Vinayak tells his aunt about a “mad woman” roaming the forests. “You can’t do anything about madness,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “But what about humanity?” he asks, in a poignant conversation. The film tries to destigmatise mental illness, often equated with being possessed by the devil in rural India. It deals with the moral ambiguities and hypocrisies of society in dealing with mentally illness. Ironically, Vinayak finds comfort and solace in the company of the very woman disowned by society.

Like all extraordinary films, Paltodcho Munis is also filled with visual metaphors that convey much more than what is visible onscreen. It was shot in 35 mm on the hills of Sanguem (South Goa). Heavy-duty equipment was hauled up the hills, a feat in itself. “We had to walk about two kilometres with all the equipment including the generator and the crane,” recalls Shetgaonkar. Many people referred to the film back then as his madness. But if madness gives solace to oneself or even others, it’s not such a bad thing, is it?

The writer is a lazy film critic who doesn’t let anything come between him and his Goan siestas, except movies.