''Chaitra'' is a short film by Kranti Kanade based on author G.A. Kulkarni's story of the same name. Kranti selected this story for his thesis short film towards completion of his degree in Direction from

Film and Television Institute of India The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) is a film institute under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India and aided by the Central Government of India. ...

. The film went on to win three

National Film Awards The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Cinema of India, Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India ...

in 2002.

Plot

The story of a proud woman, her poetic vindication of unfair social insult, and her inevitable sad destiny. A very culture-specific film dipped in a local festival of rural women.

Cast

Sonali Kulkarni Sonali Kulkarni (born 3 November 1974) is an Indian actress, producer, and writer who primarily appears in Marathi, Hindi and few Tamil films. Kulkarni is considered as one of the most accomplished and highest-paid actresses in Marathi cinema, ...

as Mother * Abhishek Bhave as Madhu * Lalan Sarang as Naik Kaku * Vandana Vakhnis as Naik baai * Dhiresh Joshi as Father * Bhakti Pathare as Rakhma * Uttara Kulkarni as Shanta * Shripad Amte as Mama

Production

The film was shot in Alandi village near Pune and the post-production done at FTII. Being a student film, director did not have enough budget but Sonali Kulkarni and Lalan Sarang agreed to do the film without remuneration. Music director

Bhaskar Chandavarkar Bhaskar Chandavarkar (16 March 1936 – 26 July 2009) was an Indian sitar player, academic and film and theatre composer who worked with well-known directors of Indian cinema like Mrinal Sen, Girish Karnad, Aparna Sen, K. G. George and Amol ...

not only composed music for the film without taking any remuneration but he also paid for the musicians himself. Cinematographer Mahesh Muthuswami contributed an amount towards the production and so did the sound designer Subir Das.

Awards and recognition

Chaitra won three

in 2002. *

National Film Award for Best Short Fiction Film National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction The National Film Award for Best Music Direction is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the National Film Development Corporation of India The National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) based in Mumbai is the ce ...

(

) * National Film Award – Special Mention (non-feature film) (

) At the

Mumbai International Film Festival The Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films (MIFF) is a festival organized in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) by the Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Infor ...

2002 it won National Critics’ Award and Best Short - Silver. That year, it was India's official entry to the

Student Academy Awards The Student Academy Awards are presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in an annual competition for college and university filmmakers. Description The awards were originally named the Student Film Awards and were first pres ...

. The film was also included in a DVD titled "Master Strokes", a compilation of works of twenty renowned FTII students.

References

{{Reflist Indian short films 2000s Marathi-language films 2002 films 2002 short films