Film on Portuguese culture on the anvil
(Times of India)


PANAJI: An Indian filmmaker is creating a story that
will offer glimpses of Portuguese culture's lingering
hold over Goa, through the eyes of a Brazilian man,
with "bombshells" from both countries.


Kolkata-based director Indranil Chakravarty's project
will see the likes of Tabu and popular Brazilian
actress Sonia Braga, described by Chakravarty as a
"Brazilian bombshell" who now works mostly in
Hollywood.


Chakravarty said: "It is the story of a Brazilian man
who discovers rather late in his life that he has a
family in Goa. It is also the story of a family over
three generations, a family that breaks up in the year
of the Liberation (as the end of Portuguese rule in
1961 is termed) and comes together, accidentally, 40
years later through one man's journey of
self-discovery."


Goa, a former 451-year-old Portuguese colony, is
central to the story.


The plot moves between Goa, Portugual's capital Lisbon
and Brazilian capital Rio de Janeiro. "As one would
know, there are historical links between these places.
I am not making an arbitrary connection. I couldn't
have worked on the same kind of story with Kolkata at
the centre," says the director.


"It is unfortunate that Goa's rich history has not
been explored sufficiently in cinema. The only
exception that comes to mind is Shyam Benegal's
Trikaal."


Goan pop star Remo Fernandes will do the music track,
which has six songs, and Portuguese singer Sergio
Godinho has offered to compose and sing one song.


Chakravarty studied film direction at the Escuela
Internacional de Cine, Havana, whose founder and
chairman is Nobel-prize winning author Gabriel Garcia
Marquez.


Chakravarty, whose first feature film was The Tamarind
Tree, says he has been involved with the continent
"both emotionally and academically. Goa attracts me
for the rich hub of history that it is."


For many months Chakravarty has been working out the
script, building up the crew and looking for finance.
"I have just returned from Lisbon after a long stay
where I have found a very enthusiastic Portuguese
producer who in turn is pursuing a Brazilian partner.
So now I only need to find an Indian co-producer."


"The research is now almost over and I'm just trying
to finish the script. We start shooting the film in
September 2003, beginning with the Goan section. The
film should be ready for release by March 2004," says
Chakravarty, who was a faculty member for film
direction at Kolkata's Satyajit Ray Film Institute.


To put the film together, funding will have to come
from "20 or more different sources", anticipates the
filmmaker.


He says: "This is not meant to be a Bollywood
blockbuster but the very nature of the project demands
a budget much bigger than the usual offbeat films. The
film is being made with a niche audience in mind. The
interesting aspect is that this niche market is
actually a very big one, all the more so when you are
thinking in global terms," says Chakravarty, who has
made two fiction films in Spanish and several
documentaries and educational programmes in India.


He believes that in Bollywood things are "changing at
a fast pace".


Producers seem more open to new themes, perhaps
"because they realise an offbeat theme is more likely
to appeal to educated urban audiences than the usual
rehashes. In fact, many English-language films are
being made at the moment and mine is just one of
them," says Chakravarty.


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