Libby de Liberdade: A Century of Courage, Conscience and Goa’s Freedom explores centenarian freedom fighter Libia Lobo Sardesai’s extraordinary life through Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar’s documentary. Vinta Nanda speaks to the filmmakers.

In their new documentary, filmmakers Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar revisit the extraordinary life of Libia “Libby” Lobo Sardesai, whose role in Goa’s liberation struggle extended from an underground radio station to the building of institutions in a newly liberated Goa. The film screens at Vikalp@Prithvi, Juhu, on October 30.

At a time when histories of freedom struggles are often told through familiar names and defining moments, Libby de Liberdade brings us close to a woman whose life has been inseparable from Goa’s journey towards freedom and its evolution thereafter. Directed by Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar, the 78-minute documentary traces the life and times of Libia “Libby” Lobo Sardesai, a freedom fighter, administrator, advocate and public figure whose story is as much about resistance as it is about the responsibilities of citizenship.

Born in 1924, when Goa was still under Portuguese colonial rule, Libby grew up in a world marked by political upheaval and the Second World War. Her engagement with questions of freedom began early. As a young girl living near Crawford Market in Bombay, she witnessed British attacks on peaceful Gandhian satyagrahis. The experience, the filmmakers suggest, planted the seeds of rebellion that would shape her life.

Her subsequent journey brought her into contact with influential thinkers and political movements. While studying law at Siddharth College of Law in Bombay, she was interviewed for admission by Dr B.R. Ambedkar. Her teacher, poet and philosopher Nissim Ezekiel, introduced her to M.N. Roy’s ideas, drawing her towards Radical Humanism. She joined the Goan Youth League led by Tristão de Bragança Cunha and became involved in the movement for Goa’s liberation.

One of the most remarkable chapters of her life was her collaboration with Vaman Sardesai in establishing Goemcho Sodvonnecho Awaz, or the Voice of Freedom. Operating clandestinely from the forests along Goa’s border, the radio station broadcast anti-colonial programmes every night for six years, from November 1955 until December 1961. At a time when Portuguese colonial propaganda sought to control the narrative around Goa, these broadcasts offered an alternative voice to a population yearning for liberation.

The radio station’s significance lies not merely in its audacity but in its understanding of communication as an instrument of resistance. Broadcasting from the margins, Libby and Vaman Sardesai challenged the authority of a colonial regime and helped sustain the spirit of the liberation movement.  

Their story also offers a reminder of how independent media, often operating with limited resources and considerable personal risk, can become central to a larger political struggle.

Yet Libby de Liberdade does not confine itself to this extraordinary episode. Goa’s liberation was a beginning rather than an endpoint for Libby. In the years that followed, she contributed to the development of the state through her work as an administrator, advocate and institution builder. Her initiatives ranged from infrastructure for tourism to the establishment of Goa’s first Women’s Cooperative Bank and its first College of Home Sciences. In recognition of her contribution, she was awarded the Padma Shri in 2025.

Even in her centenarian years, her engagement with public life has continued. Her participation in the anti-casino protest movement and Justice Ferdino Rebello’s Enough is Enough movement reflects a conviction that citizenship demands continued vigilance. For Libby, freedom appears to be an ongoing responsibility rather than a chapter that closed with the end of colonial rule.  

Two filmmakers, one extraordinary life

For Monteiro and Jayasankar, the making of the film began with a realisation that a significant chapter of Goa’s history remained inadequately documented. Former professors at the School of Media and Cultural Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, the two filmmakers have spent decades working across documentary filmmaking, media education and research. Their practice combines an engagement with social and political histories with a sustained interest in the possibilities of documentary as a form of independent inquiry.

Their films have received national and international recognition, while their work in film education has helped mentor and commission documentaries by students and early-career filmmakers. They received the Satish Bahadur Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Film Education from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, in 2022. Their book A Fly in the Curry (Sage, 2016), on independent Indian documentary, received a Special Mention for the best book on cinema at the National Film Awards in 2016.

Their encounter with Libby also had a personal dimension. As the directors explain in their statement, their connection with her stretches back to a time before their own lives. In the early 1940s, when Libby was just sixteen, she worked alongside Anjali Monteiro’s father, Inocencio, and his siblings in an office that censored letters written by Italian prisoners of war. When the filmmakers met Libby around her hundredth birthday in 2024, this historical connection became the starting point for a film that would unfold over the following two years.

They were struck not only by the historical importance of her experiences but also by her curiosity, humour, independence and forthrightness. They describe how she continues to engage with the world with an openness that refuses to be diminished by age. Recalling a visit to an exhibition of the artist Fonseca’s work at Xavier’s Historical Research Institute, they remember Libby asking why there was no picture of the artist himself.  

Reconstructing a history through memory and archives

Asked about their approach to documenting Libby’s life, Monteiro and Jayasankar explain that they concentrated on conversations with her, encouraging her to revisit memories of the past and discuss them with others. They also recorded a felicitation organised by Stephen Konkani Kendra on August 15, 2024, where Libby spoke extensively in Konkani about her life and her involvement in the liberation movement.

“Libby is amazingly articulate and her memories are rich and detailed,” the directors say.

Her recollections were complemented by archival research. The filmmakers accessed transcripts of the daily broadcasts made by the Voice of Freedom over six years, which Libby has donated to the Goa State Library. They also drew on newspapers and periodicals in Portuguese and English, as well as footage documenting Goa’s liberation struggle and subsequent developments from the Films Division archive. Both the Goa State Library and Films Division, now part of the National Film Development Corporation, assisted them in accessing relevant material.

The interplay between personal testimony and historical records gives the film a wider perspective. Libby’s memories are not treated as isolated anecdotes but situated within the political and social circumstances of their time. The result is an attempt to reconstruct a life while also recovering the atmosphere, conflicts and aspirations of an era.

The documentary spans two years, beginning in the run-up to Libby’s hundredth birthday celebrations in May 2024. Its movement between past and present allows the history of liberation to coexist with the realities of contemporary Goa. A woman who once used radio to challenge colonial power now speaks from within a society still negotiating questions of development, public accountability and collective responsibility.

From filmmaker and subject to friends

The duration of the filmmaking process was important to the directors. Rather than approaching Libby’s life as a story to be quickly captured, they allowed time for conversations, everyday encounters and a relationship to develop.

“We were not in any great hurry to ‘capture’ material, rather we were more interested in getting to know Libby as a person and a friend,” they tell me.

Over two and a half years, they say, their relationship has grown beyond that of filmmakers and their subject. Their respect for her indefatigable spirit, independence and willingness to speak her mind has deepened. They describe the experience as one of getting to know a friend whose life continues to challenge and inspire them.

Their hope, as they express in their directors’ statement, is that audiences will fall in love with Libby and find inspiration in her life journey. The film’s title captures this intersection of the personal and the political. Libby de Liberdade evokes a woman whose identity is bound up with freedom, but whose story also invites us to ask what freedom means once the struggle for independence has been won.

Why Libby’s story matters now

At 102, Libby remains a participant in public life rather than a figure confined to the past. Her life offers a continuum between the struggle against colonial authority and the ongoing responsibility to question power, defend public interests and remain engaged with society.

For The Daily Eye, the film also opens up a conversation about independent documentary filmmaking and the work of recovering histories that risk being forgotten. Monteiro and Jayasankar bring to the project their longstanding engagement with documentary as a form of cultural inquiry, while Libby brings a life that spans a century of political transformation. Together, they create a record that is both historical and intimate.

Libby de Liberdade will screen at Vikalp@Prithvi, Prithvi House, Juhu, Mumbai, on Friday, October 30, 2026, at 7 pm. A second screening will take place at Media Mantra, J.H. Mini Auditorium, SNDT Women’s University, Juhu Campus, on Saturday, October 31, at 3 pm; registration is required for the latter.

At its heart, the film is a reminder that history is not made only by those whose names become familiar. It is also carried by people who take risks, build institutions, challenge authority and refuse to disengage when the immediate struggle is over. Libby Lobo Sardesai’s life, as seen through the patient and thoughtful lens of Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar, is one such history—still unfolding.

Film details

Libby de Liberdade (78 minutes; English and Konkani; 2026)

Production: Monteiro-Jayasankar Productions

Script and direction: Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar

Cinematography: K.P. Jayasankar

Location sound: Anjali Monteiro

Editing and sound design: K.P. Jayasankar and Anjali Monteiro 

Sound post-production: Mohandas V.P.

Colourist: Mahak Gupta

Screenings

October 30, 2026, 7 pm: Vikalp@Prithvi, Prithvi House, Juhu, Mumbai.

October 31, 2026, 3 pm: Media Mantra, J.H. Mini Auditorium, SNDT Women’s University, Juhu Campus, Mumbai. Registration required.

Watch the trailer:

More about the filmmakers: http://www.monteiro-jayasankar.com/