Marathi Cinema in 2024: How Did The Industry Fare This Year?

The Marathi film industry is known for its inspired subjects, but for some time, this hasn’t been enough. Despite filmmakers’ consistency and innovation, the audience's response to Marathi cinema has been lukewarm at best since the pandemic. 2024 was no different; however, there were a few exceptions with certain trends that seemed to click luring audiences back to the theatres. Still, hit films were few and far between.

The triumph of comedy

 Humour has always worked with Marathi audiences, as long as the filmmakers keep it fresh and avoid repetition. Paresh Mokashi has been exceptionally successful in bringing a surprising variety of subjects to the genre. Last year, he did well with Vaalvi, a social critique posing as a murder mystery. This year, his film Nach Ga Ghuma, starring Mukta Barve as a working woman and Namrata Sambherao as her housemaid, was the industry’s top-grosser. The film dealt with women-centric themes and also talked about the rarely-commented-on class conflict routinely seen in middle-class households. Unsurprisingly, the second-biggest film of the year was also a comedy; Sachin Pilgaonkar’s Navra Maza Navsacha 2, a sequel to his 2004 film Navra Maza Navsacha was a farcical comedy with Sachin Pilgaonkar and Swapnil Joshi in the lead roles.

Political films walked a thin line between real and reel

Political films are rare in Marathi cinema, though not unheard of. Dr Jabbar Patel’s Sinhasan (1979) is considered a benchmark in the genre, something many others have aspired to repeat. But the politics of Pravin Tarde’s Dharmaveer (2022) was entirely different. The film, while being presented as the biopic of Shivsena leader Anand Dighe (Prasad Oak), introduced the current Shivsena chief Eknath Shinde as a character (Kshitish Date) and played a key role in garnering public support for the coup that overturned the government at the time. Its sequel Dharmaveer 2 was released this year. The new film focused more on Eknath Shinde, and though not as successful as its predecessor, it still managed to work as an extended PR campaign for the recent elections.

Another film trying something similar was Rajesh Mapuskar’s Yek Number. A straightforward fantasy revolving around an imagined assassination attempt on Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, the film was designed to propagate the MNS chief’s political thought, creating a positive buzz in his favour just in time for the elections. It, however, had no takers.

Tales of the Maratha Empire remain an audience favourite

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and the Maratha empire hold a special place in the heart of every Maharashtrian, and Marathi historicals were popular in the early days of the talkies. The genre was revived by Digpal Lanjekar in 2018 with his film Farzand, and he soon announced a cycle of eight films covering that era, titled Shri Shivraj Ashtak. The sixth film in the series, Shivrayancha Chhava, about the life of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, released early this year, alongside two more films based on the same subject. There was Chhatrapati Sambhaji directed by Rakesh Dulgaj, and Dharmarakshak Mahaveer Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj: Part 1 directed by Tushar Shelar. The films did reasonably well, priming the audience for next year’s big-ticket Hindi release, Laxman Utekar’s Chhaava, in which Vicky Kaushal plays Chhatrapati Sambhaji.

Realist films found new distribution avenues

Sandip Sawant, credited with reviving Marathi Cinema a couple of decades ago with his film Shwaas (2004), returned with his third film in 2024: Hya Goshtila Navach Nahi. It was a soulful story of a boy diagnosed with a potentially deadly illness. The film had made the rounds of the festival circuit, and lacking conventional entertainment, was unsure of a theatrical audience. This prompted the filmmakers to look for new ways to find an audience and arrange for special shows that catered to the demands of film societies. In Pune, they screened the film for a limited audience at an experimental theatre venue; this seems like the beginning of a new trend that indie films may need to resort to. Lacking such alternative distribution technique, Chhatrapal Ninawe’s Ghaath, an important film which was part of the Berlinale’s official selection last year, suffered due to a lack of audience.

Marathi cinema revived on a national platform

The Indian Panorama selection at IFFI (the International Film Festival of India) is one place Marathi films have been known to make their mark. Understandably then, there was a great hue and cry last year, when their Feature Film section did not feature a single Marathi-language film. The film community was pleased when things went back to normal in 2024, with three feature films in the section, and Nikhil Mahajan’s Raavsaaheb was selected in the International Competition category. Shashi Khandare’s Gypsy, about the life and struggles of the marginalised section, and Navjyot Bandivadekar’s Gharat Ganpati, a straightforward family drama, were received well, with Bandivadekar winning the award for the best debut director of an Indian film.