Name of film: BMCLD
Produced by: Shreela Agarwal (self-funded)
Running time: 4 minutes 54 seconds
Languages: Hindi, Marathi

Often, the point of a film is purely polemical — when the visual medium is a vehicle for social engagement. There are filmmakers who invent languages to alchemise personal histories on the margins of majoritarian experiences, megacities and social systems.

Shreela Agarwal, 25, has won a Gold from the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival in the short documentary category for her film on a boxing club that thrived in Mumbai’s margins for exactly this brand of filmmaking. It’s a film set largely in a matchbox dwelling in Mumbai, and some of its precarious peripheries.

The BMCLD (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Labour Department) boxing club was founded in 1962 by Rohinton Sethna and sustained with irrepressible passion by state champion and national-level pugilist Bipin Mahida. Over several years, generations of children and teenagers from Mumbai’s slums have found purpose and impetus to navigate life in the margins from it.

There was a time when boxing in India was dominated mostly by Parsis. Until the 1960s, most national champions were Parsis.

Sethna was part of the BMC Welfare Development Program. Parsis typically speak Gujarati, and Sethana came to know about the Gujarati community living near Tulsivadi in Mahalaxmi. He recognised both the talent and the socio-economic challenges ofthe people there and........

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