Zinemaya Blog

Vanaja is a 2006 Indian art house film written and directed by Rajnesh Domalpalli on a story that constituted his Master of Fine Arts thesis at Columbia University. The film, made in the Telugu language, was filmed on a meagre budget of $20,000 using a cast of non-professional first-timers for two and a half months.

Rajnesh Domalpalli, was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and graduated with a Bachelors and Masters degree in electrical engineering in 1984 and 1986 respectively. His family has moved to Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh in South India, where his parents live in retirement. During his Bachelors degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, he used to write short stories, and one of the, The Dowry, was twice selected for broadcast by BBC World Service while he was in graduate school. During schooling, he was introduced to south Indian classical music, on the veena, and followed this up with several years of training on the vocals. He studied veena during his schooling at the IIT from the wife of one of his Professors.

While he was working as a software engineer in the Silicon Valley, California, he decided to pursue filmmaking in 2001, and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University in 2006. Without any prior experience in Arts, he was concerned that he would not be granted admission to the University, so he took pre-requisite courses ranging from art history to design to acting to voice study.
The story of Vanaja was Domalpalli’s project submission in his first semester at Columbia University in the Fall of 2001. The story was inspired by a child’s scream at being separated from her mother in the film, Sophie’s Choice. Over the next three semesters, however, it veered away from his original intent about mother-child separation, towards a study of what Domalpalli later described as, “elements of class distinction and conflict that continue to infuse our society and culture even today.” He also said that the film was about “fading institutions of folk art, old buildings that are collapsing, things which we should be protecting – that are a part of our heritage.” Referring to preservation of Indian culture and heritage, he said that he took the film to be an opportunity to emphasize the Indian folk arts.

Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) is the 15 year-old daughter of a poor, low caste fisherman from rural Andhra Pradesh. Her father, Somayya (Ramachandriah Marikanti) struggles to support his family despite dwindling catches at sea and mounting debts. One day, Vanaja and her teenage friend, Lacchi (Bhavani Renukunta), watch a theatrical performance by a former Kuchipudi (a native classical Indian dance form) great, Rama Devi (Urmila Dammannagari). The sequence of events lead to a soothsayer predicting to Vanaja that she will be a great dancer one day. With permission from her father, she goes to work in the house of the local landlady Rama Devi with the hope of learning Kuchipudi. While she is employed as a farmhand, she is entrusted with tending the chickens. When she gets caught while playfully chasing them, she lies to conceal her pranks. Her vivaciousness and spunk soon catch the landlady’s eye. To keep her out of trouble, Rama Devi soon promotes her to a kitchen underhand where she meets Rama Devi’s cook, the old, crusty and extremely loyal Radhamma (Krishnamma Gundimalla).

After settling down at the landlady’s house, Vanaja gets invited to play a game of ashta chamma (a leisurely played game in rural towns of Andhra Pradesh) against the landlady herself. Knowing that losing isn’t the mistress’s forte, she deliberately gives up her game. This gesture, in turn, eventually secures her the landlady’s mentorship, first in music and then in dance. Vanaja excels at these art forms and seems to be on a steadily ascending path until the arrival of Shekhar (Karan Singh), the landlady’s 23 year-old son, from the United States. Shekhar is a handsome, muscular young man who is running for an office in the local government. Sexual chemistry is ignited between Shekhar and Vanaja (still a minor at 15) when flirtation and sexual innuendo bloom.

In the meanwhile, her father’s fishing boat is taken away by creditors. He sinks into a state of sadness and begins to drink away her savings. On one occasion, Vanaja’s superior intellect pits her against Shekhar in a public incident which ultimately humiliates him in front of his mother. Matters escalate and on one day when Vanaja is raped by Shekhar. She eventually loses her job when she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy, much against Rama Devi’s wishes who would have liked her to abort the foetus. Vanaja hopes that the physical evidence of the child will be proof of the rape, and that somehow Shekhar will be brought to justice. However, Shekhar has no desire to marry Vanaja because she is from a lower caste. In the end Rama Devi and Shekhar gain possession of the child, who will grow up to be an upper caste boy.

The film was screened at several international film festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, among others. While it was nominated for the Diesel Discovery Award at the former, it won the Best First Feature award at the latter. Besides this, it won several jury prizes at other film festivals, and was nominated for the Best First Feature and Best Cinematography awards at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film found favour with many international critics as well. Roger Ebert ranked the film among the five best foreign language films of 2007. The film, which runs for 111 minutes in its vernacular Telugu language along with subtitles in English language, failed to find any distributors for screening in India.

Speaking of Bhukya’s performance, the San Francisco Chronicle writes – “Bhukya delivers an entrancing and natural performance, deftly balancing both the wide-eyed childishness of a young girl with the dawning awareness of life’s darker possibilities. She’s also an accomplished dancer, which she proves at several points in the film.” It adds – “can this wonder-filled film truly be not only Domalpalli’s first feature, but originally part of a thesis submission at Columbia University? Both in the film’s writing and direction, Domalpalli displays maturity, wisdom and a loving sense of visual and character detail.” watch the film HERE.