Young turks help Kolhapuri film world regain lost glory

KOLHAPUR: Once a hub of the Marathi film industry, the city is witnessing a renaissance after young filmmakers try their hands at the short-film genre.
Short-films have limited requirements in terms of both equipment and finance. Once the basic shooting process is completed, filmmakers turn to free software for stock music, editing and post-production work.
The city-based short filmmaker Umesh Bagade became a trend-setter after his zero-budget short-film Chaukat made its way to the short-film corner of the Festival De Cannes in 2017.
An engineer, Kaustubh Deshpande screened his short-film Deru in Mumbai on Friday in the private national short-film festival. Kaustubh, who enjoyed watching short-films and funny videos on social media platforms during his college days, said that he always wanted to be a filmmaker and that engineering gave him a different perspective too look at things.
He said that though his first zero-budget project could not be finished, however, it taught him to manage the crew. Later, he started assisting established directors to understand the steps involved in filmmaking.
“My first short-film was made on a budget of Rs 3,000, while my latest movie where all the actors and producers were paid, cost Rs 4 lakh. I connected with people from the film fraternity on Facebook and got little details about projects, which made a bigger impact on me,” he said.
According to Abhishek Shete, a self-taught cinematographer, who has worked in award-winning projects like Chaukat and Saavat, said that times are changing for the good in the city. “The era of repetitive stories has given way to watertight scripts. The crew is professional and produce high-quality content,” he said.
“Kolhapur has a renowned history with cinema. There is a spurt in the number of films being produced from the city and the young brigade will soon bring back the lost glory,” Shete said.
Seconding Shete, Umesh Bagade, director of Chaukat, said that when it comes to professional quality of production work Pune and Mumbai have better options, but when it comes to untapped talent Kolhapur is way ahead of them.
Akash Pawar, a student and an actor, said that the city has many theatre groups, which helps the youngsters to learn acting skills from veteran artists.
An official from the Kalamaharshi Baburao Painter Film Society in the city said that in the 2016 edition of the Kolhapur International Film Festival (KIFF) the number of short films from the city rose to 30, compared to last year’s 10—indicating the rise in the number of young filmmakers from the city.