Marathi stars celebrate Women’s day
Four Marathi stars namely Bhargavi Chirmule, Prajakta Mali, Gayatri Datar and Tejaswini Pandit celebrated Women’s day at the Planet Talent office, which is part of Planet Marathi. After cutting the cake they interacted with the media persons who were invited on this occasion. Each one of them shared their memorable experiences with the important women in their lives, besides participating in the fun games organised on this occasion.
Mr. Akshay Bardapurkar, Mr. Sanjay Jadhav and Mr. Pushkar Shrotri who are part of Planet Marathi platform were also present. Speaking on this occasion, Mr. Bardapurkar said that Women’s day need not be celebrated on one particular day, but everyday, He further added that the purpose of organising this function was to encourage and honour the women attached to Planet Marathi platform.
Fine gesture by Ashwini Bhave on the occasion of Women’s day
US based Marathi actress Ashwini Bhave visits her motherland every year around this time. Last year, to encourage protection of environment, she had gifted plants to 15 actresses in Mumbai. This year also she gifted plants to 10 male actors, so that they pass on the same to the most important woman in their life. Besides this, her visit to India this year turned more special for another reason. Ashwini Bhave visited a village Jambhulpada in Raigad district on the occasion of Women’s day and showed a fine gesture by gifting sewing machines to deserving poor women, so as to enable them to earn something for their needs.
Speaking about her visit, Ashwini said that she was in touch with an NGO ‘Sudhagad Hitvardhini Sabha’ working for the welfare of this village. “Since I was in Mumbai during the Women’s day, I though that I should spend some time with those poor women in village and that’s how the idea of gifting them with sewing machines came to my mind.” she added.
A lot is expected from Marathi Women film directors
After watching the success of Sai Paranjape in Hindi films and Marathi theatre right from 70s, many women in Maharashtra were inspired to move into direction. And the two prominent names were Aruna Raje and Sushma Shiromani. Aruna successfully shouldered the responsibility of directing the Hindi films like ‘Rihaee’ starring big stars like Hema Malini, Vinod Khanna, Naseeruddin Shah & Reema Lagoo and ‘Bhairavi‘, Sushma offered commercial Marathi films like ‘Fatakdi‘, ‘Bhingari‘ & ‘Kadaklakshmi‘. Recently, Aruna Raje made her comeback through a Marathi film ‘Firebrand‘ starring Sachin Khedekar, Usha Jadhav & Girish Kulkarni, which was released on Netflix last month.
Then we saw the rise of women film makers like Shrabani Deodhar through award-winning films like ‘Lapandaav‘ & ‘Sarkarnama‘ and Kanchan Adhikari through a sensible film like ‘Manini‘ which was the first Marathi film shot in Dubai. Kanchan had already become popular on television, when she directed a mega serial ‘Damini‘. Actress turned director late Smita Talwalkar also offered some good sensible films, besides directing her debut film ‘Savat Majhi Laadki‘.
During the past few years, some more women directors have entered Marathi film industry and prominent among them are, Samruddhi Porey, Swapna Waghmare Joshi, Mrinal Kulkarni, Kranti Redkar, Manva Naik & Pratima Joshi, who have offered good subjects with nice presentations and much more is expected from them. We had also heard about Mrunmayee Deshpande making an announcement about her entry into direction. On the occasion of Women’s day, we wish all these new women film makers all the best.
It’s Woman Power in Marathi Entertainment
On the occasion of International Women’s day, we at Marathi Movie World thought of reviewing the role of Woman in different departments of Marathi Entertainment. And, we observed that it’s woman power everywhere, be it Marathi stage, TV serials or films. They are in the forefront not only to entertain the audience but also prove their ability in different fields, such as acting, production, direction, costume designing, lyrics, music and so on.
If we start with the theatre section, today we find the female actresses inviting all the attention, while displaying their acting potential through various ongoing Marathi plays. To name a few, Mukta Barve in Code Mantra, Spruha Joshi in ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy‘, Leena Bhagwat in ‘Ke Dil Abhi Bhara Nahin‘ Reshma Ramchandra in ‘Chhada’ and so on.
On the small screen we find Mrunal Dusanis (Assa Sasar Surekh Bai), Akshaya Deodhar ( Tujhyat Jeev Rangala) , Mayuri Deshmukh ( Khulta Kali Khulena) have set some ideals before the audience, through their respective characters. Every serial has a negative character. Today, we see some of the women playing negative roles. So, it is a woman v/s Woman. But finally, it is always the win of pleasant over the evil. Title songs of almost all the serials have domination of female singers. Moreover, when we visit the sets, we find many women associated with production and technical work, which is highly appreciated.
Now, coming to the big screen, we have observed the importance given to many women oriented films in Marathi, with more and more women coming forward to making of films. So, after Sai Paranjape , Aruna Raje, we find women film makers like Shravani Deodhar, Sumitra Bhave, Kaanchan Adhikari, Samruddhi Porey, Mrinal Kulkarni, Kranti Redkar and so on, also coming forward to offer their creativity. Some of the actresses who have already proved their mettle through their respective characters in women oriented films and winning the awards and appreciation are, Ashwini Bhave, Urmila Kanitkar Kothare, Sai Tamhankar, Tejaswini Pandit, Mrunmayee Deshpande in the recent past. There are many others associated with production and post production work.
Discussion on ‘Woman in socialistic reality and cinema’
8th March is celebrated throughout the globe as International Women’s Day and to mark the occasion variety of programmes take place e.g. Bike rallies, Half Marathons, talk shows etc. Varsha Tawde, better half of Honourable State Minister Vinod Tawde, through her Bharatiya Stree Shakti organisation, organised a panel discussion on ‘Woman in socialistic reality and cinema’, through a film festival ‘O Womaniya’ which screened international, national and regional films, at Sathye college auditorium in Mumbai.
National award winning film/drama director, Chandrakant Kulkarni , Pallavi Joshi, a national award winning actress , Abhiram Bhadkamkar, director, actor and writer , Samruddhi Porey, national award winner film maker, were the panellist , whereas Rajni Velankar, a well known name in acting field, conducted the function. The discussion started on a controversial documentary ‘India’s Daughter’ on Nirbhaya, with a question on film’s impact on crimes and rapes in society.
Chandrakant Kulkarni denied any such impact and said at length ‘All my body of work has been women-centric in some way or the other. If films are responsible for atrocities in society, then why the image of police depicted in films is contrary to that?’ Though Samruddhi Porey admitted that fractionally it may be true, but posed a counter question, how come good things are not picked up from films?’
On aggressive views of Ragini Chandratre, President BSS, writer Abhiram Bhadkamkar countered saying ‘no one wants labelling on these issue’ and stated that females in films are still searching for an identity. “Because, films raised issues of women, women started realising about their own issues. Rapes existed even before films were made.” he continued . Pallavi Joshi, who joined the panel a little late ,realistically stated, “Earlier villain/vamps in films showed us a mirror as to what was wrong in our society. But in today’s scenario no one knows who the villain is; and we are witnessing circus in the name of cinema. A lot of film makers are interested in women-centric subjects but lack of viewers’ patronage discourages them. We as a audience should support these ventures as we support other commercial films” she was talking in depth. In fact both Joshi and Kulkarni, with their light hearted comments, kept the audience in good spirit.
Top 10 women from Marathi Entertainment industry and their contribtion.
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