Mumbai to host Vijay Tendulkar film festival

Mumbai, July 15 (IANS) A film festival is being organised here July 17-22 to pay tributes to noted playwright and scriptwriter Vijay Tendulkar, who passed away May 19.

Vijay Tendulkar was essentially a Marathi playwright, better known for his hard-hitting plays "Ghashiram Kotwal" and "Sakharam Binder". He also maintained close links with the film industry in Mumbai, both Marathi and Hindi.

He wrote a number of screenplays in both the languages, taking cues from the real life incidents.

Some of the well-known movies he wrote screenplays for include "Shantata, Court Chalu Aahe" (1972), "Nishant" (1975), "Samna" (1975), "Manthan" (1976), "Simhasan" (1979), "Geshrayee" (1980), "Aakrosh" (1980), "22nd June 1897" (1980), "Umbartha" (1981), "Akriet" (1981), "Ardh Satya" (1983) and "Sardar" (1993).

Two of these movies, "Akriet" and "22nd June 1897", will be screened at the Vijay Tendulkar Film Festival being organised by Prabhat Chitra Mandal in collaboration with Rudra Home Entertainment in Mumbai July 17-22.

A biographical short feature, "Tendulkar and Violence", produced by the California Arts Society, will also be screened.

"Akriet," directed by Amol Palekar, exposes the darker niches of corruption while "22nd June 1897", directed by Nachiket and Jayoo Patwardhan, is about the plague epidemic gripping Pune in 1897 that led to two brothers, Damodar and Balkrishna Chapekar, killing a British ICS officer on June 22, 1897.