Edited by city's Borkar, 'Baangdya' goes to Cannes

NAGPUR: As a city, Nagpur may have many milestones, but here is one that will definitely be one to look up to in the field of arts, culture and entertainment.
Probably for the first time in its history, the Orange City has thrown up a person who is deeply involved in a film that will be premiered at the acclaimed Cannes Film Festival. Nagpur's Prashant Borkar is the editor of ‘Baangdya', a Marathi short film that has been chosen for the film festival to be held between May 12 to 23.
It's the world premier of the movie which has been directed by Kedar Jape, a former software engineer. ‘Baangdya', which means bangles in Marathi, is set in the backdrop of farmers suicides in Vidarbha, and tells the story from the point of view of a little girl whose father has already immolated himself and whose mother is trying to follow suit. Shot entirely in black and white, the film is 16 minutes and 45 seconds long.
The first venture by Jape, the film features Maithili Kadam as the little girl named ‘Chingi', and Madhugandha Kulkarni, the wife of noted Marathi artist Paresh Mokashe, as her mother. Borkar said that director Jape had the vision of taking a local problem to the global level, and that was how they started off with this project. “Since the entire film had been conceptualized in black and white, we had two choices before us.We could either shoot the film in colour and then make it in black and white on the editing board, or we could use a black and white roll to shoot the film. We chose the latter,” he said.
“The decision had its own set of problems. We had to seek out a special camera for the shots, and it took us a lot of planning for each shot. That was because in black and white, lighting is a big issue. Nevertheless, after a lot of effort, we managed to complete the film,” added Borkar, an alumnus of the Mahatma Gandhi Centennial Sindhu High School in Jaripatka.