Kannada film Ghatashraddha in top 20 best films made in India

If you are getting bored of reading posts like why Ramya said no to Prakash Rai's film at the last moment or Radhika gave birth to baby girl, then here is some quality news.

Ghatashraddha (death rites), the Kannada movie based on U R Ananthamurthy’s short story and directed by Girish Kasaravalli, has been voted as one of the 20 best films made in 100 years of Indian film history.

According to sources, 1.6 million people have voted for this movie. It was announced at the International Film Festival being held in Goa.

This was Kasaravalli’s first movie, done in black and white in 1977. “I had Meena, Ajit, Narayana Bhat, Ramakrishna, B Suresha and Shantha in the movie which had music directed by B V Karanth and camerawork by S Ramachandra.’’

The story is about a cruel way of excommunication. The death rites are performed for a living person to mark excommunication from Brahmin society.

Kasaravalli said: “It was a powerful and extraordinary story. It spoke of rituals and traditions in Brahmin families. It was my first movie after I graduated from the Pune film institute. I had selected Meena Kuttappa, who was a student at that time, for the role of Yamunakka. It won national (Golden Lotus) and state awards.’’

The story goes like this: Yamunakka, a child widow, has an affair with a village schoolteacher and gets pregnant. Her lover arranges for abortion and disappears from the village. The elders discover Yamunakka’s secret and her father performs ghatashraddha.