Filmmaker Deepak K Beshra’s life story plays out like a rags-to-riches script.
The 42-year-old has an established production house, DKB Marndi Productions, in Baripada and a string of critically and commercially acclaimed Santhali films, spanning Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal, under his belt.
In 2015, the All India Santhali Film Association (AISFA), Jamshedpur, adjudged Beshra Best Director and Cinematographer for Dular Renag Nowa Sagal, his first film. DRNS also bagged the Best Film Award from the Pandit Raghunath Academy of Santali Cinema and Art.
His short film, Dular Darha, won in the community category at the Samvaad National Film Festival, 2017, in Jamshedpur.
Beshra’s Unicef-sponsored documentary on infant and young child feeding – shot in 2018 for Women’s Organisation for Rural Development, Koraput, Odisha – is one of his most appreciated works.
Beshra is chairman of the Santali Art and Film Development Foundation, which was set up in 2016 and has been organising the annual Baripada National Indigenous Film Festival since 2017.
“Among my music videos, the research-based Chag Cho Chando (2014), shot for Frobenius-Institut, Germany, is in the institute’s archives,” says the director. However, his smile belies many painful memories.
Born and brought up in Rourkela of Sundargarh district, Beshra’s was a family of humble means. His father, Ramachandra, was a crane operator at Rourkela Steel Plant. In 2000, when Beshra was still studying at the Municipal College in Rourkela, his father met with an accident and was admitted to Ispat General Hospital.
The long-drawn treatment costs ended up consuming all the family’s savings while the sole breadwinner was bedridden. Beshra came home after graduating to see his mother Bimla struggling to support five members of the family on a shoe-string budget. For the next three years, he tried a string of jobs, desperately wanting to earn and support his family, but to no avail.
In 2003, Beshra took up a two-year course in multimedia in Hyderabad with his meagre savings and a little help from his family. Subsequently, he got a job at WiNiT and slowly, from then onwards, his pay package increased steadily as he switched to other companies. His father’s recovery was also a huge load off his shoulder.
Fate dealt another huge blow to Beshra in 2011, when he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, a form of blood cancer, at Krishna Institute of Medical Science, Hyderabad.
However, good treatment and his prayers helped Beshra pull through. Perhaps this awareness of his mortality added to a lifelong dream to make movies in Santhali – Beshra managed Rs 5 lakh of crowdfunding for his maiden venture, DRNS, the first HD Santhali feature film.
Making the movie was not the end for Beshra. Theatres refused to exhibit his film as they doubted its commercial viability. Beshra had to screen it mostly in the open fields of remote areas in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
But despite the odds, the 2015 release clicked with his audience. As the response buoyed his sentiments and others’ confidence in him, Beshra immersed himself in his celluloid dream.
The Santhali filmmaker had finally arrived.
