Regional cinema | A marathi summer

With compelling narratives and well-rounded characters, marathi films are gathering critical and commercial acclaim, despite having neither the money nor the star power of bollywood.

ISSUE DATE: Jun 1, 2026

Two estranged sisters come together to look after their cancer-stricken mother, who has a dark secret. A couple who split on a turbulent note meet unexpectedly in Tokyo where they confront why things fell apart. A father and son come to terms with the fact that the wife and mother who left them is now a man. A famous Maratha ruler battles Muslim adversaries and familiarises his people with the concept of swarajya (self-rule).

These are the themes of four Marathi films—Tighee (Three Women), Toh Ti Anu Fuji (He, Her and Fuji), Baapya and Raja Shivaji—released in just the first five months of 2026 and already creating waves. Bollywood may be the big daddy of the region, commanding giant budgets and bankable national stars, but Marathi cinema is slowly and steadily making a mark on the back of compelling narratives and well-rounded characters.

The appeal of Marathi cinema, says Jeejivisha Kale, who made her directorial debut with Tighee, has always been its “progressive” streak. “That’s why I felt so comfortable coming up with a story like Tighee.” Addressing issues like child sexual abuse, workplace harassment and the passage of trauma, Tighee is an assured debut, with measured performances by Bharti Achrekar as the matriarch and Nehha Pendse and Sonalee Kulkarni as her daughters. At the same time, it is more than just a mother-daughters relationship drama, capturing the everyday experiences of women. “You are aware of being looked at differently. There is a policing of how you say things in front of people you have grown up with,” says Kale. “There is always a hushed tone when people know things have happened within families but choose not to believe it.”

Much like Tighee, the lived reality of modern relationships also inspired writer-director Mohit Takalkar’s Toh Ti Ani Fuji, in which actors Lalit Prabhakar and Mrinmayee Godbole play an estranged couple reflecting on their relationship years later. “Relationships today are negotiating ambition, careers, migration, loneliness, digital overload, changing gender roles...” says Takalkar. “What I wanted to explore was not the beginning of love but what happens once the intensity settles. How two intelligent, sensitive people who genuinely love each other can still damage the very thing they are trying to protect. A failed relationship is not necessarily a false one.”

THE POWER OF SIMPLICITY

Sameer Tewari walked around with the script of Baapya for two years, seeking takers for the story of a woman who transitions to a man. He initially considered making it in Hindi, but with little headway, he finally produced it himself in Marathi. “Where Hindi cinema plays on grandeur and everything being glitzy and glossy, Marathi is a lot more intimate,” he says. “There are such lovely, simple and emotional stories. Marathi audiences are also open to it.” They certainly responded to Baapya, whose scenic Konkan setting and use of humour made the subject accessible even as adept actors like Girish Kulkarni, Rajshree Deshpande, Shrikant Jadhav and Devika Daftardar essayed characters that represent everything Tewari hopes society is. Focusing on multiple relationship dynamics—between age-old friends, husband-wife, father-son, grandmother-grandkid—his film shows how love is the best antidote to the disease of bigotry. “Baapya is about being non-judgmental,” he adds.

Marathi cinema’s lush creative spell in 2026 isn’t an anomaly. Just last year, the industry saw a spate of films offering fresh, welcome perspectives. There was Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears), directed by the debutant Rohan Kanawade, the story of a gay man who rekindles his relationship with a childhood friend in his ancestral village, wowing audiences at the Sundance Film Festival. Actor Shivraj Waichal successfully donned the director’s hat with his first feature, Aata Thambaycha Nahi (There is No Stopping Now), about the lives and aspirations of municipal workers. Marathi cinema, after all, has a legacy flowing down from such greats as Dadasaheb Phalke and V. Shantaram, with directors like Umesh Kulkarni, Nagraj Manjule and Ravi Jadhav making their mark in recent years. The industry first got national attention with Shwaas (2004), the heartbreaking tale of a grandfather and his visually-impaired grandson, which became India’s entry in the foreign film category at the Oscars. Ten years later, Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut, Court, about a protest singer’s travails through Mumbai’s legal system, won the National Film Award and the Orizzonti award at the Venice Film festival.

PITFALLS AND POTENTIAL

But funding remains a challenge for some. “The issue with Marathi cinema has been long-term support,” says Takalkar. “Isolated excellence cannot be confused with a thriving industry. There is a great deal of anxiety within Marathi cinema about audiences, theatrical support, budgets and visibility. Sometimes, it also underestimates itself creatively.”

Unlike Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films, Marathi films face another obstacle: a limited geographic footprint. At home, they contend with Bollywood, which usurps screens with the sheer volume of films produced, star power on display and larger-than-life stories.

Streaming platforms, barring ZEE5, have not invested in voices from the Marathi entertainment ecosystem, be it in features or long-format storytelling. “If people can watch Korean films with subtitles, then they can surely watch Marathi ones too,” says Kale.

There’s hope on the horizon, though. Hema V.R., business head, Marathi ZEE5, notes how viewership of Marathi films is expanding to Karnataka, Gujarat, Goa, Telangana, Karnataka and Delhi. The industry’s “meaningful content” is driving a 38 per cent jump in subscriptions. “This signals a real shift,” she says. Riteish Deshmukh’s Mumbai Film Company has shown that Marathi films can be money-spinners, as with Lai Bhaari (2014) and Ved (2022), and now Raja Shivaji becoming the highest-grossing Marathi film ever. Meanwhile, Nagraj Manjule, whose star-crossed romance Sairat (2016) struck a chord, directs one of Jio Studios’ big Marathi offerings: Khashaba. A biopic on the titular wrestler who won independent India its first ever individual Olympic medal, Manjule hopes to repeat the feat he accomplished with Sairat: make a pan-India Marathi film.

“The future of Marathi cinema,” says Takalkar, “lies not in becoming a smaller version of Hindi cinema, but in becoming more specific, more emotionally contemporary and more fearless in its own voice.”

MARATHI FILMS TO WATCH OUT FOR

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