Videoteca

Ramshastri 1944 star_border 5.7
Prabhat's expansively mounted historical set at a contentious period of the Maratha empire is a biographical of Ramshastri Prabhune (1720-89), chief justice at the court of Madhavrao and later of Nana Phadnavis, and a major figure in the development of an indigenous legal code.

Shejari 1941
Marathi version of the film starring Mazhar Khan, Gajanan Jagirdar and Anees Khatoon. In a small village in India, the villagers of different communities live in harmony. But when an industrialist, arrives to construct a dam, he sows distrust and disunity between the Muslim and Hindi communities.

Saint Dnyaneshwar 1940 star_border 9
It's the story of a boy who finds enlightenment by experiencing religious hipocrisy and dogmatism. Dnyaneshwar liberated the "divine knowledge" locked in the Sanskrit language to bring that knowledge into Prakrit (Marathi) and made it available to the common man.

Manoos 1939 star_border 5
A love tragedy featuring a policeman, Ganpat (Modak) and a prostitute, Mainal (Hublikar). Ganpat saves Maina from a police raid on a brothel and they fall in love. Her reputation and sense of guilt resist his attempts to rehabilitate her. Ganpat's respectable middle-class mother (Sundarabai) symbolizes all that Maina would like to be, but she is arrested for murdering her evil uncle and refuses Ganpat's offer to release her from prison.

Kunku 1937 star_border 5.7
Neera (Apte) is trapped into marrying an old widower Kakasaheb (Date). He is a progressive lawyer with a son and daughter of Neera's age. Neera refuses to consummate the union claiming that while suffering can be borne, injustice cannot. Neera faces many hurdles including her mother-in-law and a lascivious stepson Pandit (Nene).

Sant Tukaram 1936 star_border 6.9
This classic film chronicles the life of Tukaram (17th C.), one of Maharashtra’s most popular saint poets, activating the 20th century resonances of his turning away from courtly Sanskrit towards vernacular rhythms of religious poetry.

Chandrasena 1935
This special-effects laden film is based upon an episode from the Ramayana. Indrajit, son of Ravan, initiates an attack on Rama (Mane) and Lakshmana (Kulkarni) in which they are captured by Mahi (Kelkar). They escape with the assistance of Rama's disciple, the monkey-god Hanuman (Manajirao). The narrative foregrounds Chandrasena (Tarkhad), wife of Mahi, who reveres Rama but disapproves of the bacchanalian orgies and the celebration of liquor that is the norm in his kingdom. She helps resolve the stalemate of the battle when Mahi (who can duplicate himself and his dead soldiers) proves invincible, by revealing the secret formula that will kill her husband. In addition to the usual flying figures and magic arrows mandatory for a Ramayana mythological, there is an effective scene of a gigantic Hanuman picking up a miniaturized human figure.

Amrit Manthan 1934 star_border 5
This classic opens with a sensational low-angle circular track movement as Chandika cult followers meet in a dungeon of flickering lights and deep shadow. As the more rationalist King Krantivarma (Varde) banned human or animal sacrifices from the increasingly fanatical festivals dedicated to the goddess, the cult's high priest (Chandramohan/Date) orders the hapless Vishwagupta (Kelkar) to kill the king.