Media Release
Mangaluru, Jan 15: Award winning Bollywood and South Indian filmmaker Sandeep Malani has always made women centric films. All his films, be it short films or feature films have women playing the main lead (central character) with the male lead playing supporting characters. Be it SMS 6260, Jo Jo Laali, Sulige Sikkidaaga, Shaayad, Janleva 555 and Maa – Yeh Cinemaa Hai. Following this trend, his latest short film is titled ‘Bandagi’ (Respect Woman).
'Bandagi' emphasizes on woman empowerment with various topics and issues that the celebrities talk about. It fights for a woman’s freedom, to live peacefully.
The film is officially selected to be screened at the prestigious Don Bosco Youth Film Festival Of India (DBYFFI) on January 18 and 19 across 20 states and 86 venues in India. Don Bosco Youth Film Festival of India is a yearly, non commercial film festival organized by the Don Bosco network in India to showcase good short films based on values that speak on youth and life. The main scope of this festival is to bring all the youth together, screen and discuss through short films which treats issues concerning them, thus educating, entertaining and empowering them to tune themselves as good citizens and become positive agents of social transformation.
For DBYFFI, Bandagi stood out to be a wonderful creation and highly motivating in its content. As the participants of the film festival are primarily youth, the film would turn out to be definitely inspiring to them.
The various topics in the film create awareness in society to stop child marriage, dowry system, rape, molestation, eve teasing, domestic violence etc and to encourage girl education, adoption, rights for women in society, girl empowerment and woman empowerment. It also gives importance to motherhood.
Organiser of DBYFFI Fr Joaqim Fernandes quotes, "Bandagi is a good blend of interspersing film and song to respect women with dignity."
Sabrina Alathi, co-ordinator states, "The film is an attempt to showcase power and elegance of exceptional women of all ages and this short video has also set the trend to appreciate few phenomenal men who support such women just by being with them. I extend my appreciation to Malani for the way he has responded to his mother and wife. Congratulations to the team! Keep inspiring!"
The artistes who carry strong social message in the film include award winning actress/dancer Sudha Chandran, actress Adaa Khan (of Nagin fame), Mangalurean actress Sonal Monteiro, Kannada actress Harshika Poonachcha, fashion stylist Janu Arasu and model Komal Atmaramani. The musical video ‘Jeene Se Pehli Hi’ features Meena Malani, Sanjukta Ghosh, Shubha Raksha, Reshma Malani, Anitha Dulam, Sharanya Jit Kaur, Jagruti Mehta, Jyothi Harindranath, Varsha Acharya, Cherrie Ash, Ranjeet Jha, Mahendra Pandey, Vishal Digani, Mahesh Dulam, Akash Hora, Bharath Lakshmikanth, Anant Joshi, Mann Hora, Chirag Kundapur, Vivek Mishra, Vivek Punjabi, Kkewal Vyas, Prayas Singh, Shivam Kataria, Chitranjani Chittu, Shane Abhishek, Priya and Drushika Padmanabhan with Aditi Dulam, Sheetal Malani and Silver Malani. The song has been sung by Soma Basu and Shrikanth Nair with lyrics by Roop Kumar and music by Jayant M Aryan.
Editing by Santosh Chawla and Vignesh Thanupillai for The Studio Agency. Concept, screenplay, camera and direction by Sandeep Malani for Malani Talkies Production.