“Friends of Film: Our Rivers, Our Stories” Brings Goa’s Rivers to the Screen, and Calls Audiences to Stand Up for Them  

Goa Khabar: Heritage First Goa (HFG) held its annual film festival, “Friends of Film: Our Rivers, Our Stories,” at Auditorium 1, ESG, Panaji. The daylong programme of short films and documentaries made in Goa, about Goa, was screened in celebration of the rivers.

Aaron Monteiro welcomed guests and introduced Capt. Nitin Dhond, veteran Indian Merchant Navy captain and conservationist, who flagged off the “Our Rivers” segment. The “Our Stories” segment was flagged off by Prashanti Talpankar, a Sahitya Akademi Translation Award winner for her work in Konkani.

The films were curated from “We the Rivers,” a campaign that held a competition and received six entries, of which three won prizes. The winners were screened alongside other films on Goa’s rivers. “All said and done, we are part of the rivers, and the rivers are part of us,” said Heta Pandit, Director, Heritage First Goa.

Capt. Dhond, who has worked in conservation since 1990 and founded the Mhadei Research Center in 2008, reminded the audience of the antiquity of the region’s rivers. “Our rivers of the Indian Peninsula, or what we find in the Western Ghats, are much older than the Himalayas, Ganges, Brahmaputra or Yamuna, because they started forming 150 million years back,” he said.

He warned that the rivers face over-extraction, illegal mining, monoculture and small dams. He said Karnataka extracts a large sum of water for sugarcane cultivation, adding to pressure on the Mahadai and plans to divert it. “River knows no boundaries,” he said, urging filmmakers to move audiences. “One of the most [important] things you will do through these movies is inspire us and create a will in us to fight for the river.”

The audience responded strongly. Annabelle Desylva, who has lived in Goa for six years, said the festival was an education. “Today was a bit of an educational experience for me,” she said, singling out Sonia Filinto’s Shifting Sands for its portrait of Goa’s dwindling fishing community. She urged recent arrivals to “educate yourself, watch these movies.”

Dylan Fernandes, a Goa University Master’s student attending for the first time, said, “I’ve learnt a lot about the culture and the rivers of Goa. Things that I never knew before. The films are one better than the other.” He added that such events “should happen more often.”

For more on Heritage First Goa, visit www.heritagefirstgoa.com.