Konkani cinema set for its most expensive film

India makes about 1200 movies in a year and in many languages. One of them is Konkani, a language spoken in parts of the southern Indian State of Karnataka. Now, Konkani cinema is all set to see its first ever most expensive film.

India makes about 1200 movies in a year and in many languages. One of them is Konkani, a language spoken in parts of the southern Indian State of Karnataka. Now, Konkani cinema is all set to see its first ever most expensive film. At Rs 3 crores (a huge figure by the standards of India’s regional language cinema), the movie, Baga Beach, will be directed by award-winning Laxmikant Shetgaonkar.

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Baga Beach will be co-produced by India’s Sharvani Productions along with a foreign company (name undisclosed) and will have an Indian, French and German star cast.

Shetgaonkar, whose debut feature, The Man Beyond the Bridge, was listed as the 101 best films of 2009, along with James Cameron’s Avatar and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, hoped that with Baga Beach, Konkani cinema would gain its long due recognition.

The movie, whose casting will begin in the next few days, is to be shot on the beaches of Goa and elsewhere. It will deal with the perplexing issue of tourism and industry in the Third World narrated through the lives of five teenagers that are intricately entwined with the sea beach at Goa’s Baga.

Shetgaonkar, who is at the ongoing International Film Festival of India at Panaji, hopes to complete Baga Beach before next autumn. There have already been enquiries from the festivals in Toronto and Abu Dhabi.