The landmarks across the cities of Goa would not be the same without the artistic wit of Goan legendary cartoonist, Mario de Miranda. Anyone who walks into the Panjim Market, Kala Academy’s indoor auditorium or Goa Central Library, the first thing they do is stand and admire the beauty of each character drawn by Mario. Its charm still casts a spell on the onlooker. Bringing the audience closer to this legend is a documentary film, ‘The World of Mario...Seriously Funny’ by Doordarshan Goa under its series of ‘Stories & Documentaries on Icons and Iconic institutions from Goa’. The documentary features the life journey of the artist originally from Loutolim, who travelled the world but also took the Goan characters with him.
The screening of ‘The world of Mario…..seriously funny!’ will be held in the presence of the chief guest, PS Sreedharan Pillai, Governor of Goa, on October 22 at Doordarshan Studios, Altinho, Panjim at 11.15 am.
DD Sports producer, anchor and project coordinator, Savio de Noronha explains the origins of the documentary, “Like many things Goan, we got this idea over a cup of tea! We were discussing the fact that there are so many Goan personalities who have made their mark internationally in fields ranging from art and culture, cinema and music, science, sports and lots more. We soon decided to document these Goan icons and institutions, with the main intention of saving their work, life and times for posterity. But given the attention span of Gen-Z, we thought that the best way out would be documentary films of around 30-45 minutes. In March this year, we inaugurated our series titled ‘Stories & Documentaries from Goa’ – which kicked of the first public screening which featured the documentary film on Brahmanand Shankwalkar, ‘Famously Found @ 15’.”
He further adds, “This is the second public screening and this time it’s none other than the world famous Mario Miranda whose work has amazed two generations. We have also worked on greats like Braz Gonsalves, Ramdas Kamat, Francisco Martins, Prasad Sawkar, The Museum of Christian Art among others. We have received requests for the screenings to be done in schools and colleges as well.”
Fatima Miranda Figueiredo, Mario’s younger sister is excited to watch her brother on the big screen and is looking forward to the documentary. “Pedro was my elder brother and Mario was the middle brother while I am the youngest. Mario and I have an age gap of 16 years. He was very soft-spoken and kind and he taught me to
dance,” says Fatima with a smile.
Oscar de Noronha researched and scripted the documentary. He speaks about the challenges he faced, “Mario had the world for his canvas, so the main challenge was to be able to truly cover his creative life in a short documentary. Identifying the right talking heads and liaising with them was another challenge. His sister Fatima gave us valuable inputs. And we also got onboard film-maker Shyam Benegal, the Indian adman Gerson da Cunha, architect Gerard da Cunha who owns the Mario Gallery, and many others.”
Reminiscing about the works of Mario Miranda, Oscar says, “Working on Mario took me back to my Bal Bharati textbook. As kids, few must have known that the illustrations were done by a great Goan artist. Then, I saw him and his dog in the pages of the Illustrated Weekly. Finally, I met Mario face to face for the first time in 1987, at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon. On his exhibition catalogue he scribbled, ‘For Oscar, Saudades, Mario’, and suddenly I felt I’d known him forever. He very kindly illustrated my father Fernando de Noronha’s memoirs, ‘Momentos do meu Passado’, which he said had brought back nostalgic memories of his youth in Goa. To me, those saudades remain – of a gentleman with a twinkle in his eye, an unassuming genius, a lovable character, just like all those that he has immortalized in his illustrations and cartoons.”
Founder-curator of Mario Gallery, Gerard D’Cunha knew about Mario Miranda but only got to know him more closely when started working with him on his books, when Mario returned to Goa in the later 1990s. “Mario Miranda is a very important person, as far as Goa is concerned. He really analysed Goa, but not in a harsh way. He would do things in a funny way but still give the message. There have been many interviews of Mario on TV but this is the only documentary after his passing,” says Gerard.
While his cartoons were always funny, Gerard speaks of Mario as a person, “He was a very quiet guy. He was observed everything happen. But he was never talking to anybody just watching the fun. Unlike most artists, he was not temperamental but very approachable and simple.”
Editor and producer Uday Sridhar Kamat is program executive and in charge of programming section of Doordarshan Kendra, Panaji. He informs, “Nearly 80 percent of the work is done by Oscar Noronha. I have only executed the way he designed and I give credit to Oscar for the success of the documentary. I took help of our team from Mumbai Doordarshan to record the personalities from Mumbai like Shyam Benegal. I wanted the documentary to go very smoothly. I did not want it to drag anywhere, since TV is a visual medium, you need lots of footage. My issue was obtaining footage from different places. Luckily, since Doordarshan has good library in major Kendras like Mumbai and Delhi, I could get footages from Mumbai including visuals and live bytes of Mario Miranda. I will also give credit to Neeraj Agarwal, Zonal Head, Mumbai, as he asked me to do a documentary on Mario Miranda and I got the support of Savio Noronha.”
Oscar concludes with a message to the younger generation. “Mario is a curious case of a self-trained artist who had different styles, worked with different mediums, and across the print and electronic media. It is a civic duty to pay homage to the greats of our land. He loved Goa and worked towards preserving our culture and heritage. Many tourists used to come here in the hope of finding ‘Mario’s Goa’ but often they were disappointed on seeing that Goa had changed a lot.”