Almost a decade ago, a motley crew of filmmakers and students from different parts of the country descended on the quiet village of Carona in Aldona. However, their infectious personalities energised the other villagers. That’s how these Aldonkars are now part of a 90 minutes fictional film that will be screened at the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) Film Festival.
‘Aiz Maka Falea Tuka’ (Today me, Tomorrow you) is a Konkani supernatural mystery which will have its World Premiere at JIO MAMI Film Festival 2023 with focus on the South Asia Section on November 1, 2 and 3. The film was shot in 2019 and the cast members include Ravio Rafus Fernandes, Prashanti Talpankar, Milind Nabar, Selwyn D’Silva, Prashant Parsekar, Abhishek Biswas, Wayne Pereira, Valentino Xavier and Johnny D’Souza.
The film is directed by Sreejith Karnaver and written by Akshay Singh. The film is produced by Akshay Singh and Sreejith Karanver under the production company by Catatonic Films. Tenzing Dakpa is cinematographer and the film is edited by Parmanand Kumar and Tanmay Kulkarni, sound designer is Jayadevan Chakkadath and the original score is by Lionel Dentan, Chairian Dalal. Tanmay Kulkarni is also the sound recordist while Keya Bardalai and Brita Boruah handled hair and make-up and art is by Abhishek Biswas.
The film will screened on November 1 at 12.30 pm at Juhu PVR Dynamix Mall, on November 2 at 9.30 pm at Goregaon ICON Oberoi Mall and on November 3 at 10.30 am at Ghatkopar INOX R City Mall. The team members were overjoyed to hear the good news about the selection of the film for the film festival. After its initial completion, the film was screened in January this year for the cast and crew, family and friends at Entertainment Society of Goa, Panjim and this will be the second screening, first in Mumbai.
The story of the fictional film revolves around an archaeologist who unearths an idol of a medieval society from a drying water body in Goa. The discovery triggers a phantom to roam the marshlands. In its path lies Carona, a sleepy village living on small pleasures of the past. The phantom sets its sight on Ravio, a weary bakery-worker mocked for being ‘slow in the head’. On his morning round, Ravio gets lost and desperate, ending up in the defunct iron-ore mines. There, he is consumed by the phantom. Soon, a series of killings and disappearances takes place, and most villagers leave to settle elsewhere. Six months later, the archaeologist roams Carona learning what happened here after his discovery. He tracks Ravio’s movements on that fateful day, it leads him to a grove where the phantom is resting.
Akshay Singh, originally from Varansi, settled in Carona ten years back. He completed his Masters in Screenwriting from National Film and Television School with the assistance from MS Farsi Scholarship for the Arts. He has written and produced short fiction films like Punjabi film, ‘Mehsampur’ and ‘The Gold-Laden Sheep and The Sacred Mountain,’ a mystical adventure film about a shepherd’s search for a crashed pilot in the Upper Himalayas, which was shot among the Gaddi tribe in Himachal Pradesh. He was also a BAFTA Breakthrough India 2021 participant.
With the experience of travelling and shooting in different locations, ‘Aiz Maka Falea Tuka’ felt more at home for Akshay. “The film was completed with post production in June this year and in July, we submitted it for the MAMI Film Festival. Working in Konkani was not a problem as the people around us knew the language. Carona has a very interesting mix of people and there are certain practices and traditions which evoke something you don’t see around other places. It is a beautiful village and we have pulled elements that are used in the film,” says Akshay, who’s next film, ‘Bugyal Boys’, a coming-of-age thriller set in the mountains around Nanda Devi is in the post production phase.
The film has used the very same villagers of Carona as the cast of the film except for Milind Nabar and Prashanti Talpankar, two noted actors. Milind has acted in web series like ‘Horror Stories’ in the episode ‘The Old Bastora Road’ which Prashanti has made a name for herself by portraying varied characters in Konkani films like ‘Paltadacho Munis’, ‘Baga Beach’, ‘Juze’ and more recently ‘Amori’. “Prashanti plays the role of Banumati, a forest dweller like a witch doctor. You have to select the right people and get them on board and condition them to act. The villagers were new to filmmaking but they had acted in different theatre forms like tiatrs and nataks in the village. They were open to suggestions and it was a two way lane of communication,” explains Akshay.
Around 80 percent of the film was shot before Covid-19 pandemic which later led to the delay in post-production which was mostly done in Goa. However, for certain aspects of post-production, the film had to be worked on in Mumbai. The filmmakers, cast, and crew will be in attendance at the festival in Mumbai to engage with the audience, discuss the film, and answer questions during Q&A sessions. “We are truly honoured and excited to be part of MAMI 2023. This festival has a rich tradition of celebrating diverse and ground-breaking cinema, and we are eager to share ‘Aiz Maka Falea Tuka’ with the vibrant and discerning MAMI audience,” says Sreejith Karnaver, the film’s director, who is currently based in Mumbai. The independent film was also awarded as the winner of ‘Prasad Lab DI Award and Moviebuff Appreciation Award’ at Film Bazaar Online FBR 2020.
For Prashanti Talpankar, ‘Aiz Maka Falea Tuka’ was more of a comeback film. After battling cancer, she completed her treatment and recovery in 2017 and took on this role as a challenge to fight against the stigma that cancer has in the society. “There is this impression in society that cancer is a stigma and many people give up. I was recovering and here was a young group of creative people from all over India who were working together in Goa. Imagine coming from bubbly cities and living in a quiet village like Carona. But the entire village knew them and they became assimilated in the village life. I used to get tired during the shooting but I enjoyed the experience as it boosted my self-esteem,” says Prashanti, who is also a management studies lecturer at DM College, Assagao.