Good opening response to Navara Maajhya Mutheet Ga in Pune
RK Vision’s Navara Maajhya Mutheet Ga, a rollicking comedy directed and edited by Sanjeev Naik, which opened at the Prabhat Talkies in Pune from August 11 in regular daily 3 shows, has had a good viewer response. The film has done well at the box-office during its first week’s run, according to Mr Sharad Pai, of the Prabhat Talkies. Produced by RK Mehta, the film, with Satish Randive as executive director, is said to be a laugh riot involving three married couples enacted by Ashok Saraf and Nirmiti Sawant, Sudhir Joshi and Savita Malpekar and Deepak Deoolkar and Nishigandha Wad.

Each couple has a distinct way of life which gives rise to rib-tickling comic situations which are additionally made more humourous because of the needless meddlings of another character enacted by Vijay Patkar. Other artistes contributing their bit to the fun-filled proceedings are Bhalchandra Kulkarni., Asha Patil, Lekha Rane, B Majnalkar and Usha Naik, who enacts a guest role. Written by Ramchandra Sadekar, the film has lyrics by Nitin Akhave and Dr Vijaya Wad set to music by Shridhar Phadke. It has been cinematographed by Sharad Chavan.

A documentary on Pu La Deshpande

Thanks to Prabhat Chitra Mandal, a prominent film society of Mumbai, the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan and the Sahitya Akademi, a documentary film running to 110 minutes on the late Pu La Deshpande, film actor, director, music director, dramatist and writer, made by the Films Division with commentary by Pu La himself was screened at the Chavan Centre in Mumbai recently. Practically everyone seemed to have forgotten the existence of this documentary made in 1984 and directed by BG Devhare.

The film was a novel experiment in that Pu La himself talked about himself as the multifarious images relating to his life and activities unfold on the screen. Instead of writing an autobiography, Pu La underwent this novel experience in which he seemed to have placed himself before a mirror and tried to explain to and place before his countless fans, friends and admirers the diverse facets of his personality in the context of the experiences he had right through his life. This documentary filmed on various locations with self narration by Pu La is nothing short of a truthful autobiographical cinematic work.

The documentary made the viewer conversant not only with some of the known but also the not so known incidents which threw light on Pu La’s colourful personality. Well-known, veteran music director Sudhir Phadke, who had a bond of friendship with Pu La dating back to more than 50 years, was the chief guest at the special show of the documentary. In a brief speech, the composer recalled how he had been instrumental in getting lead roles for Pu La and his wife Sunita in the film Vande Mataram and how both of them had expertly enacted their respective roles.

Pu La retro in Pune festival

A move is afoot to screen in a retro format the films with which Pu La Deshpande was associated, as part of the week-long Pune Festival (September 5 to 12) which is annually held during the Ganapati celebrations. It is also proposed to bring out on that occasion a souvenir dedicated to Pu La incorporating some of the articles on Pu La written by well-known authors and his close friends and admirers.

Pandit Shimpi