The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan held its first offline Film7Days competition which saw the participation of ten countries including one participant from India, Goa’s very own Sainath Uskaikar. The filmmakers had to complete a 7 minute film in seven days. And Sainath did just that, winning a special award for his film, ‘Footprints of the Road’.
With a story that touches the heartstrings across cultures, Sainath thought of something that anyone can relate to breaking the barrier of language. “‘Footprints of the road’ is a Russian language film made for a film making residency at Kazan, Russia called Film 7. We had to make a 7 minute film in 7 days. Initially, they had a screenplay competition. All interested candidates had to submit their screenplay. After scrutiny, my screenplay was shortlisted. With an interview, I was confirmed for this residency. This initiative is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia and this is the BRICS edition, thus BRICS countries were included in the 10 participating teams,” says Sainath. The competition was won by Iran, Brazil, Russia winning the first, second and third prize respectively.
An alumni of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, in the Television wing for the Direction course, Sainath’s debut short film, Wagro, was part of the Indian Panorama at the 53rd International Film Festival of India 2022. The film was screened across five continents, receiving numerous awards. His next documentary, ‘Gotho’, was screened at prestigious film festivals across the world. He followed his success with short films like ‘Konso’ and ‘Guntata Hriday He’. Currently, he is working in Mumbai at Virtual Bharat as a writer and researcher with director Bharatbala.
When Sainath came across the competition in Russia, he grabbed the opportunity to work around the challenges of a new country and language. The film is directed by Sainath Uskaikar with an Indian cinematographer Suraj Thakur. The film was edited online by Yash Maheshwari and the sound design of the film was done by Abhishek Kadam.
‘Footprints of the road’ is a story of a 6-year-old school boy going on a journey to gift a pair of sneakers to his mother living away from him in the countryside. The film won its first award at the 20th Kazan International Film Festival. The film consists of Russian locations, Russian actors and in Russian language. Explaining the film, Sainath says, “It is a simple story, but very difficult to make, because I had to deal with a six-year-old kid in the story and the innocence had to come from him. I did the casting for the film for a month. The line producers would give me options, they would send me auditions, I would watch, send it to my team here in India and they would give their suggestions. We took a month to decide on this cast.”
“It was very difficult initially as the actors couldn't understand English dialogues and I had to do a workshop for a day to adapt to their culture. I had a Russian translator to help me but after the workshop, we connected emotionally and it started becoming easier. That was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process. The people are very warm. All the four actors came for the workshop, and were supportive. Usually, we would translate our interactions online, on our phones, on Google Translate. There was a lot of back and forth, because there were a lot of misunderstandings in the translations. It was literal translation sometimes, but I wanted certain things to be very feel oriented,” says Sainath.
Sainath worked closely with Eleazar and Yuliana, his line producers in Kazan, and the two producers, Senia and Thom, and their head, the president of the whole event, Stas. “The exciting part was going to a different culture, unseen locations and not knowing the language. In a sense, whoever interacted with me, these were like film college students. Whatever requirements were there, they tried their maximum to get it done,” adds Sainath.
The ten documentary films included Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and UAE. The teams were residing in one hotel which gave them an opportunity to interact. “When we were editing, we would usually meet in the restaurants, and everyone would interact in the hotel. The Russian guys would make us eat their local cuisine, which was very difficult initially, but somehow we got used to it. A cultural integration happened. We built new bridges as Eleazar and Yuliana, are my friends from Kazan now,” he shares.
As with other filmmakers, Sainath has signed a deal with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia which will allow them to screen the film in Kazan throughout the year, as they are going to celebrate the BRICS conference for a year. He says, “We have signed a paper where we allow them the rights to the film. I am the licensee of the film.”
Sainath was in Goa for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in his ancestral house in Merces and has now returned to Mumbai, where he has been working for the past year. Since he started working with Studio Virtual Bharat, he has worked on big projects like the rebranding of Air India and GK Tires. Both films were shot across India.
After experiencing and cherishing the challenges of working in a foreign language, location and film, Sainath is now looking forward to the next challenge. “I have decided now to look at a longer format. I want to explore this large format, feature film format. I have 2-3 stories which I strongly feel about and I am trying to pitch it to different producers. I am also developing some stories with some producers,” says Sainath.
He further adds, “I am exploring and focusing on my personal projects as well as focusing on a larger professional goal also. Eventually, it's not just Mumbai, it's the world. And that's why I took this Russian opportunity with a lot of excitement. They come from a different culture and we come from a different culture. But when we meet, we meet human beings. These feelings and emotions are common just as every human and that's beautiful.”