Ashok Mishra Movies
- 2001
Based on a true story that sent shock waves through India in 1992, this drama concerns Sanwari (Nandita Das), a lower-caste woman with a husband, Sohan (Raghuvir Yadav), and two children, who is raising her family in a rural village. While it's generally Sanwari's nature to mind her own business and take care of her family, when she sees a neighbor woman being mistreated by an man from the city's upper caste, Sanwari is outraged and speaks out in public about the incident. Shobha (Deepti Naval), a social worker, is impressed by Sanwari's conviction and hires her as an assistant as the Indian government begins implementing a program to give greater rights and protection to Indian women. While she's timid at first, Sanwari soon comes to value her work as a feminist activist, but as she becomes more outspoken against sexism and abuse of caste position, she earns the enmity of many powerful men in the community. First Sanwari and her family are shunned by the local leaders, and then a group of men from the town's leadership take their revenge by subjecting Sanwari first to a savage beating and then to a gang rape. Sanwari, Shobha, and Sohan refuse to be intimidated or silenced, and when the local leadership refuses to bring Sanwari's attackers to justice, they bring the crime to the attention of the national media, leading people across the country to demand justice for Sanwari -- and for women all over India. Bawandar was directed and co-scripted by Jagmohan, an Indian filmmaker who has made a number of films in the United States under the name Jag Mundhra. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nandita Das, Raghubir Yadav, (more)
- 2000
The winner of India's 46th annual National Film Award for Best Film, Samar offers both commentary on India's caste system and a spin on those seeking to observe and provide their own commentary on it. In a small village located in the Madya Pradesh province, the Thakur and Dalit castes fight over the installation of a water pump. When a Dalit, Nathu (Kishore Kadam), fearfully protests against what he feels is an unjust situation, he arouses the ire of the nasty Thakur landowner Chamak Singh (Ravi Jhankal), who duly imposes economic sanctions that threaten to starve the Dalits out of town. After Nathu's house burns down in mysterious circumstances, he goes to the local temple to ask God for help, but his contrition only gets him beaten and urinated on by Singh for breaking the ban on Dalits (also known as India's "untouchables") in a place of worship. At this point, it is revealed that the conflict is the subject of a film that is being made by a pompous Bombay director (Rajit Kapur), and that the "real" Nathu (Raghubir Yadav) is actually an energetic fellow who, wife in tow, busies himself on the film set by providing advice and factual clarification. The real Singh is now dead, and the actor playing him is an egomaniacal hipster. Tensions abound on the set, resulting in the sort of violence that the film-within-a-film purports to denounce. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rajeshwari Sachdev, Rajit Kapur, (more)
- 1996
Framed by the increasingly tenuous peace between the Muslims and Hindus in 1992 Bombay, this Indian drama examines the tender relationship between 15-year-old middle-class Muslim schoolgirl Naseem and her elderly grandfather who, though confined to bed, fills her with many exciting tales of growing up in Agra while the British were in power. Though at first Naseem and her family remain insulated from the growing tensions outside, soon the political upheaval becomes impossible to ignore and people they know, including family members, get involved. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
