Devaki (film)
| Devaki | |
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DVD cover
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| Directed by | Bappaditya Bandopadhyay |
| Produced by | K.D. Singh |
| Written by | Shakti Barthwal |
| Starring |
Ram Kapur Suman Ranganathan |
| Music by |
Bikram Ghosh Amar Haldipur Sameer Phaterpekar |
| Cinematography | Rana Dasgupta |
| Edited by | Rajeev Jhaveri Uttam Roy Shakeel |
| Distributed by | Shristri Prods |
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Release date
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Running time
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87 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Hindi |
Devaki is a Hindi film released on 6 January 2006. The film directed by Bappaditya Bandopadhyay stars Ram Kapur, Suman Ranganathan, Arvin Tucker and Perizaad Zorabian.The film was premiered at the Osian Cinefan Asian Film Festival in July 2005. Since then it has traveled to 11 International Film Festival amidst much critical accolades and has been touted as a 'must watch for every woman'. Nominated for the best feature film at São Paulo International Film Festival, Brazil, Ashville International Film Festival,NC, Global Knight International Film Festival, Malta, and Golden Gate International Film Festival,SF, it won the award in Asheville. Officially released on 6 January 2006, this small film has been doing the rounds in the video stores for some time.
The plot is derived from a real life incident where a tribal woman named Devakibai was sold in an open auction in Pandhana, a sub-division of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh, in January 2003. The auction was organized by the Maha Panchayat Panchaganga and legitimized by the presence of Hiralal Silawat, Minister of Fisheries, who inaugurated the function. This atrocity was uncovered by journalist Deepak Tiwari and became the cover story of the magazine, The Week.
Devaki takes a look at the parallel lives of two young women, belonging to strikingly different backgrounds, who were both betrayed by their fathers and lovers.
Devaki (Suman Ranganathan) is a village girl who is forced into marriage to a 70-year-old man. On the night of the marriage, she is raped by the brother of the impotent old man in order to establish the age-old practice of physical dominance of the male over the female. She develops a relation with a low-caste runaway boy but the villagers catch them in the act of love-making and they are brought before the Panchayat. Devaki is made to stand holding a heavy stone on her head, the severity of the punishment aimed at setting an example to other women. The villagers and the Panchayat decide to auction Devaki to the highest bidder and pay the money to the 70-year-old husband. Once again, another old man buys her.
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Wikipedia