Event Details
Vanaja - Movie Screening
Sun, Jan 27, 2008 at 4:30pm
Ojai Playhouse, 145 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai
Event Description
Ojai Film Society is screening the movie Vanaja. Winner of “Best Debut Film” at the Berlin International Film Festival, along with numerous other awards, this engaging and shocking look at class, gender roles and sexuality in rural India was written and directed by Rajnesh Domalpalli as his graduate thesis film at Columbia University.
Set in rural South India, a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls, the film explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles to come of age. Vanaja, a 14-year old girl, lives with her lowlife, alcoholic father in a small Indian village.
When a soothsayer predicts that she will become a great dancer one day, Vanaja goes to work as a live-in domestic on the estate of the local land baroness, Rama Devi, hoping to persuade her new employer to teach her Kuchipudi, an Indian dance form. Mamatha Bhukya, the actress playing Vanaja, does a spectacular job of slowly unwrapping her character’s ability to manipulate others with a combination of naiveté, allure and pure avarice; watching those layers reveal themselves is thoroughly fascinating and occasionally hilarious.
Prices are:
$8 - General admission
$5 - Seniors 65+
$5 - Students (with ID)
FREE - OFS sponsors
- Sponsored By
Ojai Film Society
- More Information
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Phone: 805-646-8946
Web site: http://www.filmsociety.ojai.net/
