Some Marathi flavours to savour on PIFF platter

An assortment of Marathi films on subjects ranging from politics to farmer suicide will be screen at the Pune International Film Festival (PIFF). So if you are a Marathi movie buff, the door to a treasure-trove of films opens for you today with the inauguration of the fest.

Some of the movies in the Marathi competition category that you may chance upon are: Deool (A Temple), Ha Bharat Maza (India is My Country), Jana Gana Mana (Jana Gana Mana), Shala (School), Balgandharva (Sound of Heaven -- The Story of Balgandharva) and Khalti Doka Varti Paay (Up side Down).u00a0

The movies have been weaved around different subjects ranging from politics to poverty, suicide of farmer.u00a0

Deool is directed by Umesh kulkarni, an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). The film talks about life in a small village called Mangrul. Keshav, a village youth, sees Lord Dattatrey in his dreams. Soon a temple is built and the village becomes a holy place and eventually becomes a commercial hub, robbing the hamlet of its peaceful life. Ha Bharat Maza is a movie that is directed by Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar.

The film depicts a story of a family -- Anna Sukhatme, his wife, a married daughter Varsha and two sons Raghav and Indra.u00a0Jana Gana Mana, directed by Amit Abhyankar, underlines the fact that India has all the systems in place. But Mukti depicts the drought-prone Maharashtra where famers' suicide has become a day-to-day affair.

Directed by Sujay Sunil Dahake, Shala revolves around India during the Emergency. Ravi Jadhav's movie Balgandharva became a big commercial hit, it has won a lot of awards also it a film about musical biographical drama of Indian theatre legend Narayan Rajhans alias 'Balgandharva'. Khalti Doka Varti Paa is the movie directed by Ajay Singh who is a Masters in Communication Studies, from University of Pune.u00a0