Sairat

Sairat (transl. Wild) is a 2016 Indian Marathi-language romantic tragedy film, directed by Nagraj Manjule and produced by Manjule himself under his banner Aatpat Production along with Nittin Keni and Nikhil Sane under Essel Vision Productions and Zee Studios. Starring Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar in their debuts, it tells the story of two young college students from different castes who fall in love, sparking conflict between their families.

Manjule conceived the story in 2009, basing it on his experiences of caste discrimination, but scrapped it when he decided that it was boring. After making Fandry (2013), he revisited the story and completed its script the following year. The screenplay was written by Manjule, and his brother Bharat penned the dialogues. The film was shot in Manjule’s village, Jeur in Karmala Taluka of Solapur district in Maharashtra. Sudhakar Reddy Yakkanti was the director of photography, and Kutub Inamdar edited the film.

Sairat premiered at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation. It was released on 29 April 2016 in Maharashtra and several other locations in India, receiving positive reviews from critics. The film was a box-office success, and became the highest-grossing Marathi film of all time. Rajguru received the National Film Award – Special Mention at the 63rd National Film Awards. Sairat received 11 awards at the 2017 Filmfare Marathi Awards, including Best Film, Best Director (Manjule), Best Actress (Rajguru) and Best Music Album. Rajguru and Thosar won in the Best Debut female and male categories. The film was remade in several languages: Dhadak (2018) in Hindi, Noor Jahaan (2018) in Bengali, Manasu Mallige (2017) in Kannada, Laila O Laila (2017) in Odia and Channa Mereya (2017) in Punjabi.