Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This project proposes to look at the two Marathi films; one which won a national award and other was a huge hit which boosted the financial prospects of regional cinema further. The two films Fandry (2013) and Sairat (2016) are directed and written by Nagraj Manjule, now a popular director and writer in Marathi Film industry. In Fandry (2013), Jabya (Somnath Avghade), the film’s dark-skinned protagonist, is an awkward yet winsome teenager from a family of de-notified tribe of Kaikadi, who lives in a shack at the fringes of the village. He has a crush on Shalu, a classmate, who hails from an upper caste and relatively upper class. It is set in Akolner, a tiny village near Ahmednagar, Fandry portrays the dichotomous rural India of today, where a public toilet is a luxury but an android is nearly ubiquitous. Whereas, Sairat (2016) is the story of Parshya, a Dalit teenager, and Archie, an upper caste girl- they fall in love and facing extreme wrath from the girl’s family, finally manage to elope from their village in southeastern Maharashtra and start life afresh in the metropolitan city of Hyderabad. They are eventually found and murdered by Archie’s family. The phenomenon of Dalit filmmakers, portraying the lived experiences, in cleverly crafted cinema, which is entertaining as well, has given a direction to a Dalit-centric cinematic paradigm. This cannot be looked at as a new wave Indian cinema; this is new mainstream cinema, which packs up a local entertaining appeal to it.