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Bread and Belonging
A local baker, a new migrant and a returning diaspora
Speakers
English, Konkani, Kannada I English subtitles I 50 minutes I 2020
As Goa, India’s sunshine state, comes to grips with growing migration, three stories unfold in and around bakeries that make pão, the Goan bread. Stories of people dealing with migration, changing culture, and the ever present need to earn a living.
Filmmaker Sonia Filinto will be in conversation with Swati Dandekar on 22nd Dec, 7:00pm. Register for the conversation here.
Synopsis
As Goa, India’s smallest state, comes to grip with growing migration, three stories unfold around pão, Goa’s unique bread. Stories of people dealing with migration, changing culture and the ever present need to earn a living.
At a traditional bakery, Alzira’s family has been baking bread for generations. They might be ‘insiders’ but are challenged to find local Goan workers in this labour-intensive trade. The survival of the bakery thus depends on the daily toil of family members. Not far away is another bakery run entirely by ‘outsiders’. Kiran and his co-workers set out daily at the crack of dawn, cycling for miles to deliver bread. Displaying the tenacity of migrants, they adapt to a new trade, new language, and even new diet. While the two bakeries labour on, a returning migrant, Marius, is has set himself the task of reclaiming bread of the past. He hits the streets determined to achieve his goal.
Goa’s bread, pão, successfully made the journey from outsider to insider under Portuguese rule which lasted half a millennium. Now, traditional bakers are leaving the trade and a new set of bakers from across the state border fill in, even as nostalgia for this unique bread grows.
Credits
Director: Sonia Filinto
Producer: Mamta Murthy
Cinematographer: Saumyananda Sahi
Editor: Rikhav Desai
Sound Design: Sanjay Maurya & Allwin Rego
Website and social media
https://www.facebook.com/breadandbelonging
In collaboration with Vikalp Bengaluru
Speakers
Sonia Filinto
Sonia Filinto was born and raised in Goa. She has worked as a producer on documentary films and television shows. Shifting Sands is her earlier film on the traditional fishing community of Goa. Sonia’s writings have featured in print and online publications including the People’s Archive of Rural India.
Swati Dandekar
Swati Dandekar is documentary filmmaker and film educator based in Bangalore, India, with a special interest in creating visual narratives of the living history around her; of people, places, ideas, traditions, practices, and the continuous process of change. Her past work is a series of essay films that explore the relationship between place, people, resources and the institutions that govern these. Her film “Water and a City” was widely screened in Indian and abroad, and is part of the curriculum for courses in water management and development studies. In addition, she has been closely involved with designing media for education. As a founder trustee of Vikalp Bengaluru, she has been actively screening documentary films and curating festivals in Bangalore city for over ten years. Swati heads the Film programme at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.
