The Turning Point

Interestingly,Mahadevan says that he never made the film expecting anything. “It was a film on a person and I wanted to do it correctly. Sometimes you make a film just because it has to be made. This is not because you are expecting an award or something but because it is a story that is begging to be told. With Mee Sindhutai Sapkal,everything just fell in place,” he says. For him,winning national and international awards was just something that followed.

Mahadevan says that a lot went into the research and the making of the fillm. From getting the Marathi accent right to effective portrayal of the story on screen,he says,“Sindhutai is a simple woman who came to Pune from Wardha. To be honest,I was very nervous when I screened the film for her. I didn’t know how she would react. However after the film,one of the producers,Bindya Khanolkar,showed me her wrist which had nail marks on it and said how Sindhutai had held onto her while the camera unfolded each and every page of her life.”

Mahadevan is now working on two films,one in Hindi and the other in Marathi. He has also recently finished shooting for Nagesh Kukunoor’s Mod .

“I am making a film on Appa Korpe,who started Pune’s first labour union movement. The other is on freedom fighter Gaur Hari Das,who fought for four years in the freedom struggle,and then for 30 years to get a freedom fighter’s certificate from the government,” he says.