Boli a short film directed by Martin V George

BOLI (Beyond Words) is a short film of 9 minutes about communication – and if language is at all necessary. Along with language comes accent, grammar, intonation, and the world’s tendency to slot you in a particular locality, community, even educational and financial bracket. English is an aspirational language in India, as it is perhaps all over the world. Every lane flaunts a centre for learning English, how to speak it. This general and non-stop judging of English has non-English speakers speak it self-consciously, further undermining their confidence.

In BOLI (Beyond Words), a young girl, Leela, moves from a small town in north India to Bengaluru, a big city in south India, to work in an IT firm. Here she becomes aware of how inadequate her English is compared to her colleagues who speak it fluently. Upset that she had not studied in an English-medium school, she keeps aloof from her colleagues at work. She spends her spare time trying to learn spoken English on YouTube videos.

One day Leela decides to volunteer as a weekend teacher in a hearing-impaired school. Here she blossoms and regains her self-confidence, no longer aware of her Hindi-accented English. When a deaf student hugs her and says in sign language: ‘I wish I could speak like you,’ Leela signs back: ‘If we all spoke the same way, the world would be a boring place.’

Communication is a prelingual human need. An artificial construct in the first place, no language is superior to another. There is no ONE language that fits all.

The film is directed by Martin George, written by Shinie Antony, with DoP Ronnie Abraham. The music is by Rzude David and the singer is well-known Kannada folk artist Shilpa Mudbi. The central role of Leela is essayed by actor Nimisha Dean.