Mihir Bhanage

To enjoy the sweet taste of cactus pears, you must first carefully remove the sharp spines from the skin of the fruit. Rohan Kanawade’s debut feature, Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) is meant to be savoured exactly like that. For starters, it’s a love story of two people who bond during a difficult time. That it showcases a tender relationship between two men is imperative to mention, but the film doesn’t make any claims about championing a queer cause. Sabar Bonda is a beautiful and simple film that explores how childhood friends Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) and Balya (Suraj Suman) reunite in the most difficult circumstances when Anand visits his ancestral village following his father’s death. While trying to cope with the loss, understanding the rituals and avoiding questions from relatives about getting married, Anand reconnects with Balya. The two talk about life and share warm moments that bring them closer to each other. As the 10-day mourning ends, Anand must decide the fate of this relationship before returning to Mumbai.

In the Konkan region of Maharashtra, Dashavatar presentations continue to be a huge draw. The traditional theatre form is centred around the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu, and its performers command immense respect and popularity. Subodh Khanolkar’s Dashavatar is the story of one such performer – Babuli Mestri (Dilip Prabhavalkar). Having performed in the traditional theatre all his life, Babuli is almost synonymous to Dashavatar in his village, so much that his entry in the presentation is all that people look forward to. Age is fast catching up with Babuli, but he refuses to hang his boots despite repeated pleas from his doctor and even his son Madhav (Siddharth Menon). Babuli promises to retire only when Madhav gets a job and starts earning. When that happens, the veteran performer stays true to his word and announces his last performance during a Mahashivratri celebration. On the other hand, Madhav also decides to ask for his girlfriend Vandana’s (Priyadarshini Indalkar) hand in marriage on the auspicious day. But tragedy strikes, derailing everyone’s plans and putting in motion a series of entirely unexpected events.

When waste collection by sanitation workers was briefly paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, it took just a couple of days to show us how important a role they play in society today. Be it choked drainages, burst water lines or piled up garbage heaps, the municipal safai karmacharis are the first responders that get to work. Unfortunately, they’re also the first ones to bear the brunt of citizens’ wrath in such cases. Often it is the educated person that doesn’t think twice before covering their nose and making derogatory remarks about these workers. That lack of empathy and abundance the entitled behaviour also highlights the difference between education and literacy. In multiple scenes of his debut directorial, Shivraj Waichal sheds light on this. At its heart, Ata Thambaycha Naay is an ode to the BMC’s sanitation workers whose life is a paradox – they simultaneously form the backbone of the city and are among the most neglected lot. The film is based on the real story of class IV BMC workers going back to school at the behest of Uday Shirurkar, the erstwhile assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’s ward B.

What happens when a simple, calm, composed man commits a crime out of helplessness? Is the crime justified? Does the man repent? Does he get caught? Devmanus answers all these questions and does it while keeping you hooked. An adaptation of Jaspal Singh Sandhu and Rajeev Barnwal’s Hindi film Vadh, Devmanus sees Mahesh Manjrekar and Renuka Shahane stepping into Sanjay Mishra and Neena Gupta’s roles. The film is a thrilling drama that packs all the right punches – stellar performances, a gripping story, beautiful shots, taut editing and a fitting background score. Owing money to a loan shark, Keshav (Mahesh Manjrekar) and Laxmi (Renuka Shahane) are struggling to make ends meet. The impending tension of losing their mortgaged house makes the couple helpless as Dilip (Siddharth Bodke), the goon who they’ve taken the money from, shows up drunk at their doorstep anytime he wishes to. Things take a drastic turn one day and the lives of Keshav and Laxmi change forever.

The Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute is largely centered around the city of Belagavi, aka Belgaum. While the city is in Karnataka, for years, allegations of suppression of the large Marathi-speaking population there have been doing the rounds. This issue forms one of the cruxes of Harshad Nalawade’s debut feature Follower. However, the larger part of the film, which premiered at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam in 2023, revolves around a disillusioned and disgruntled youngster, who joins a small media company that works to further a local politician’s agenda via social media. Raghavendra Pawar (Raghu Basarimarad), a well-educated Marathi-speaking resident of Belagavi, quits his job at a college after he’s allegedly sidelined by the Kannada-speaking authorities and denied a promotion. While searching for another job, he takes over his father’s gift shop after his father dies in an accident. Unemployed and constantly looked down upon by people around him, Raghavendra blames the socio-political scenario for his plight, villainising all Kannada-speaking people, including his friend Sachin (Harshad Nalawade), a YouTuber. He is eventually influenced by the local politician’s ‘fight’ for the Marathi-speaking community in the area and takes up a job that he believes he’s doing for the service of his community, thanks to the polarising words of the politician he idolises. But influenced and unthought decisions often have a way of rebounding, which is exactly what happens with Raghavendra. What, how and why are questions that Follower aims to address.

In the last few years, the Marathi film industry has seen filmmakers from the Vidarbha region take the spotlight with films set in the region. Albeit a serious concern, Marathi films based in Vidarbha have had a set template revolving around farmer issues and farmer suicides. But films like Jayanti (Shailesh Narwade), Zollywood (Trushant Ingle), Ghaath (Chhatrapal Ninawe) and Territory (Sachin Shriram), have been changing the tide, bringing forth untapped stories. Jayant Digambar Somalkar’s ‘Sthal’ is the latest entrant in the list. The film, which releases theatrically a day ahead of International Women’s Day and features an ensemble cast of first-time actors, has won accolades across various international film festivals in the last couple of years. Set in Dongargaon village in Wardha, Sthal (A Match) revolves around the Wandhre family’s quest to find a suitable match for their daughter Savita (an impactful Nandini Chikte).

Around two decades ago, Paresh Mokashi gave the Marathi theatre audience a play called Mukkam Post Bombilwadi, which revolved around an absurd but hilarious story. For the big screen, Mokashi and team adapt the same premise on a cinematic scale. Set in 1942, Mukkam Post Bombilwadi unfolds in three locations – Adolf Hitler’s office in Germany, Winston Churchill’s war room in London, and the sleepy village of Bombilwadi in Konkan, Maharashtra. Amid mounting tensions of World War II, Hitler (Prashant Damle) gets a call about some innovation in Japan that can help him win the war. In no mood to waste time, Hitler decides to fly to Japan on his own (despite not knowing how to fly a plane). In the meantime, Churchill’s (Anand Ingale) spies tell him about Hitler’s plan and the British PM vows to stop Hitler come what may. The story then shifts to Bombilwadi, where multiple things are unfolding – a play is being rehearsed, a British police officer in love with Hitler’s partner Eva Braun is more focused on staging Shakespeare’s plays than maintaining law and order in Bombilwadi, and freedom fighters are plotting to send the Brits back with the ‘do or die’ slogan. In between all this, Hitler crash-lands in Bombilwadi. How, and what happens later is what the film is largely about.

In the early 1970s, a series of murders left the residents of Manvat terrorized, and people of Maharashtra in shock. A small town in Parbhani district, Manvat saw people, mostly women, being killed over a span of about two years with a black magic ritualistic motive, as the cops would later find out. Ashish Bende’s series attempts to take a deep dive into the case through the eyes of late cop Ramakant Kulkarni’s lens. Manvat Murders is based on Kulkarni’s book Footprints on the Sand of Time, which documented his high-profile cases, including the Manvat case which he was assigned.