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"Vanaja", the acclaimed Telugu film about the coming-of-age of a
teenage girl in rural South India, will be released in the US Aug
31 after winning 15 awards at over 60 international film
festivals.
Opening its US run in New York City at Cinema Village, the film
that has won more film festival awards than any other Indian film
in 2007, moves to Los Angeles Sep 14 and will debut in Boston,
Detroit, and Austin Sep 21.
"Vanaja" will continue to expand across the country with openings
in San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Washington D.C.,
Philadelphia, Atlanta, and other cities.
Winner of the Best Feature Debut award at this year's Berlin
International Film Festival, "Vanaja" has won over audiences and
critics alike during its highly successful festival tour that took
it to countries such as Australia, Chile, China, Egypt, France,
Norway, South Africa and Thailand.
Directed by Rajnesh Domalpalli, the film set in rural South India,
a place where social barriers are built stronger than fort walls,
explores the chasm that divides classes as a young girl struggles
to come of age.
Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) is the 14-year-old daughter of a poor, low
caste fisherman, struggling with dwindling catches and mounting
debt. When a sooth-sayer predicts that she will be a great dancer
one day, she goes to work in the house of the local landlady, Rama
Devi (Urmila Dammannagari), in hopes of learning Kuchipudi dance
while earning a keep.
She is hired as a farmhand, and her vivacious ways and spunk soon
catch the landlady's eye: when she is entrusted with tending the
chicken, she's caught, instead, chasing them into a general
pandemonium, and lying unabashedly to conceal her Pranks.
To keep her out of trouble, Rama Devi promotes her to a kitchen
underhand, where she comes up against the old, crusty and extremely
loyal Radhamma (Krishnamma Gundimalla) - Rama Devi's cook.
It isn't long before Vanaja gets herself invited to play a game of
'ashta chamma' against Rama Devi. Seeing that losing isn't the
mistress's forte, Vanaja deliberately gives up her game - a fact
that doesn't go unnoticed - and which eventually secures her the
landlady's mentorship - first in music, and then in dance.
Vanaja excels at the art, and seems to be on a steadily ascending
path when Shekhar (Karan Singh), Rama Devi's 23-year-old son -
handsome, muscular and rather insecure, returns from the US to run
for local political elections.
Sexual chemistry is ignited between Shekhar and Vanaja (still a
minor at 15), as flirtation and innuendo bloom. But, the situation
suddenly turns ugly when Vanaja's superior intellect pits her
against Shekhar in a public incident that ultimately humiliates him
in front of his mother.
Matters escalate, spiralling downwards and she is pitched into a
tale of class, family and animus from which there is only one
escape.
Indo-Asian News Service
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