A film that is classified as the ``new wave'' Marathi cinema is also slated as some of the recent crop of films that aims at reviving the Marathi film industry. Populated with a host of actresses of Marathi cinema, old and new, the film is an effort that encompasses various modern political issues through its microcosm.

Vasudha, the protagonist belongs to the first family of Hanumantwadi. A Maratha family that has traditionally ruled the wadi with Annasaheb, the head of the family being traditionally elected as its representative for the State assembly.

Till one day when reservation comes knocking at their door and the constituency is declared as reserved for women. ``For me this issue was an extremely important one,'' says the director, Sanjay Surkar. ``I wanted to examine how women coped with a situation as Vasudha, caught in these modern times between her knowledgeable and educated self and her family.''

Thus Annasaheb declares his daughter Vasudha as the candidate who romps home with a record margin. With one difference. The cronies are congratulating the father and the brother more than Vasudha. Till she decides to listen to her conscience that takes her out of the house.

The film reflects a Maharashtra that has not been depicted in Marathi cinema for a long time. A land that is caught midway between a delineated past and its destiny with the future. Vasudha, as etched out by the director, is a well educated woman (an architect) who is pushed into rural politics, a traditionally male bastion.

Interestingly, all the main protagonists are mostly woman. Six characters who are inexorably drawn into the vortex of events as they depict their side of the story. While Vasuda, played by Sonali Kulkarni, the next star of Marathi cinema, represents good, Chandrakala, played by Reema Lagoo, is the ``other woman.''

``I wasn't sure I could play the role,'' says Lagoo, who has been slated in a host of goody-goody roles. Though portrayed as the actress who made playing the mother's role cool with Maine Pyar Kiya said that a character in the screen version of The other side of Midnight helped her through. Playing the role of the mistress of Vasuda's father, Annasaheb, she is part goonda Godmother and part toughie. But she is woman and she is used to explore womanhood in a different perspective.

Caught between husband and daughter is Vasuda's mother. She too has a story to tell as she shuns politics and refuses to be local Rabri Devi (a la Laloo) buts walks out with her daughter. Somewhere there is Vasuda's long suffering sister-in-law, who has to contend with a corrupt and womanising husband and her identity as a woman.

For the cast this was an opportunity to examine their own psyches and milieus. ``It was surprising,'' says Mohan Joshi, playing the role of Annasaheb. ``A dominant Brahmin cast was playing a traditional Maratha family had us studying the characteristics and the mannerisms that such a family would have.'' Joshi, who played the award winning role a politician in Rao Saheb was at ease. ``For our generation where we are educated to some extent,'' says Sonali, ``the issue of women's empowerment is extremely critical. Our role will decide the future of generations to come,'' she says.

Director Sanjay Surkar's earlier effort, Tu Tithe Mee which won a number of awards and accolades, was also a film that peddled middle class reality like this one. Today he says that educated producers are the lifeline of good cinema and the key to bringing back Marathi audiences.

Sitting in Pune, a city that is described as the cultural soul of Maharashtra, he is hoping that this movement will infuse life into an art that almost symbolised the birth of Indian cinema.