Bhubaneswar
Directors Shyama Sundar Majhi of Balasore district and Deepak Kumar Beshra of Mayurbhanj district in Odisha have created ripples in the cine world with their films, which, interestingly, were made amidst hope and hopelessness about the end result.
Released under Balasore-based Marshal Mandwa Production in 2019, Shyama’s film “Kukli’ (Question) won over 130 awards at different national and international film festivals. Similarly, his “Miru’ (Parrot), released in 2022 under Pinky Production, fetched over 48 global awards.
Like Shyama, director Deepak’s ‘Mohot’ (Value) and ‘Papaya’ (the name of a vegetable) earned accolades at various festivals. While ‘Mohot’, released under production house ‘Purudhul Kudi’, bagged seven awards at national and international shows in 2022 and 2023, ‘Papaya’, produced jointly by Deepak and his friend Jona Mandi, won two in 2024.
However, four films of the Santali film directors Shyama and Deepak have one thing in common: most of their actors including the child protagonists are greenhorns who had initially shied away from Lights-Camera-Action. The directors had to tough out many odds in taming and tackling childish mood swings of the protagonists—Dibyajyoti Marandi, Shiva Hembrom and Tufan Soren.
While Dibyajyoti and Tufan belong to Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, Shiva hails from Jamshedpur of Jharkhand.
Dibyajyoti, now a class fifth student of Baishnaba Bandha Ashram School in Baishnaba Bandha of Balasore district, played the role of main character ‘Pukli’ in ‘Kukli’, when she was only six. When she put on the cap of Miru, she was nine.
Similarly, Shiva, now a class seventh student of Saint Roberts High School, Jamshedpur, was only eight when he acted in ‘Mohot’. On the other hand, Tufan, a class five student of Taladihi Primary School in Baripada is only 10.
‘Shyama is patient and amicable enough to get work done by everybody of his film unit. Even a child artiste is easily tamed to act competently under his wing,” said Deepak Murmu, the cinematographer of ‘Miru’.
Ankit Bagchi, the programming director of Kolkata Short Film Festival (organized in January, 2024), echoed a similar view about Deepak. “‘Papaya’ emerged as the best tribal film, while Tufan was adjudged as the best child artist at our festival. This corroborates how Deepak is efficient enough to squeeze work out of a child,” Bagchi told The Indian Tribal.
Shyama did not slug out much to select his child artistes for his two films. On the contrary, Deepak had to strain a lot before he zeroed in on child talents for ‘Papaya’.
“I did not have to labour hard and take time, as all characters in my two films were played by people including Dibyojyoti are my near and dear ones,” admitted the Santali film director.
“For ‘Mohot’, I did not have to strain my nerve much because Shiva was the selection of its producer Sumi Hansda. But I had to visit three schools in Baripada in my talent hunt for ‘Papaya’. Finally, I focused on Tufan out of about 13 shortlisted ones,” said Deepak.
“Deepak came to my school during a talent hunt. But nobody could make it. Finally he selected Tufan, a student of my wife Upama Senapati, the headmistress of Taladihi Primary School,” said Prasanta Bhujabal, the headmaster of the Upper Primary School in Bhagatpur in Baripada.
Shyama’s ‘Kukli’ focuses on the need of peace in the war-torn world. This is expressed through the talkative Pukli, who turned agonizingly reticent after witnessing a war-ravaged scene on television.
Mumbai’s film scholar, historian, critic, curator and writer Amrit Gangar said, “While blurring the line between the fiction and non-fiction, the film, through spatial-temporal-sonic cinematographic chhand creates a fragile, precarious equilibrium through a child’s innocence; her questions about violence, war and destruction of nature awaits answer from the so-called modern civilized world.”
Gangar was the jury of SARAN International Film Festival, 2019, Bihar that adjudged ‘Kukli’ as the best film.
On the other hand, film ’Miru’ uses a parrot–caged by the protagonist’s father–as a metaphor for life and sufferings of girl Miru. Pestered by her father who wants her to be down in domestic drudgery, Miru finds a saviour in her mother who always encourages her to continue her study.
“Thematic presentation in ‘Miru’ is excellent. Technically it is very good, though not excellent. Similarly, the performance of actors is only very good,” said Raj Mohan Soren, the cinematographer of ‘Kukli’.
Similarly, Deepak’s film ‘Mohot’, adjudged as the best short film at Campinas Film Festival, Brazil, in 2022, underlines the importance of perseverance and value of time. It is delineated in the film by projecting how cell phones turn out to be the be-all-and-end-all for many children at the cost of their education.
On the other hand, ‘Papaya’, the best tribal film at Gossner Film Festival in Ranchi, also stresses the need of education. Here the story unfolds through child protagonist Ghumru who knows fruit ‘papaya’ by name jada, a Santali term. Though he knows jada and even sells it in village market, he searches for ‘papaya’ because he would get a bicycle in exchange of ‘papaya’, an English term that he does not understand. Ignorance about ‘papaya’ is a metaphorical expression for ‘lack of education’.
“‘Papaya’ was produced as a passion project by deep conviction in the transformative power of education. While its commercial success was not the primary focus, we recognized the immense value in using storytelling as a vehicle for social change,” said Jona Mandi, the co-producer of ‘Papaya’.
Pinky Marandi, the producer of film ‘Miru’, echoed a similar view. “We make children’s-only films out of passion,” she said
