Sai Chand

Two young people embark on a winding and rocky path to love after meeting at a wedding.

7.5/10

Siva is a new student in the community college. He is welcomed by a group of collegians, including the lovely Asha, to whom Shiva is instantly attracted. Shiva notices that there is violence within the college, perpetrated by people who are not even students. When he decides to find out their motives, he is met with violence, and threats. Now Shiva must decide to stand up for his college, or just carry on studying, finish college, and move on and get to on job.

8.1/10

Narasinga Rao’s debut is an existential melodrama with the director playing a romantic painter, Ravi, whose friends include a trade union leader (Kakarala), an autorickshaw driver, a Marxist journalist (Narayana Rao) and a glib, successful painter (Saichand) whose success contrasts with Ravi’s inability to sell his own work. His neighbour Kankamma, who rejects an evil landlord’s advances, is evicted from her house; the trade unionist is killed in police custody; and Ravi starts exhibiting his work on the streets to indicate his growing politicisation to the satisfaction of his Marxist friend. The film is geared to the CPI(ML)-led political movements in Northern AP and included the compositions and songs of the region’s best-known radical poet and performer, Gaddar.

Set during one of India’s main peasant risings, the Telangana insurrection between 1945 and 1951 in the pre-Independence state of Hyderabad, the Bengali director’s first feature tells the story of Chander’s best-known novel (Jab Khet Jaage (1948)) from the peasant’s point of view. A young peasant, Ramiah, rebels against the corrupt rule of the nizam, and when his girlfriend has to submit to the potentate’s sexual coercion, Ramiah leaves. He befriends a Marxist activist (the rising was CPI-inspired) and participates in the Independence struggle.

8.3/10

Adavalle Aligithe (transl. If Ladies Show Sulk) is a 1983 Indian Telugu-language comedy film produced by Akkineni Srinivasa Rao and Yarramshetty Anjineeyulu under the Vijaya Chitra Pictures banner and directed by Vejella Satyanarayana. It stars Gummadi, Nutan Prasad, Rajendra Prasad, Ranganath, Sai Chand, Devika, Rajyalakshmi in the lead roles and music composed by Krishna-Chakra.