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CAST
Naseeruddin Shah
Anita Kanwar
Devki Nandan Pandey
Anu Kapoor
K.K.Raina
Madhu Malati
Neena Gupta
Pankaj Kapoor
Raghuvir Yadav
Raja Bundela
Satish Kaushik
Zafar
Alok Nath
Deepak Kejriwal
Dolly Ahluwalia
Rajesh Puri
Simi
Vijay Kashyap
SPECIAL APPEARANCE Bhiku
Harsh Nayyar
Indu Chowfin
Maheshwar Dayal
Shekhar
Uttara Baokar
PLAYBACK SINGERS Pankaj Mitra
Krishna Kalle
Bhushan Mehta
Suresh Wadkar
Dilraj Kaur
Bhupinder
Mahendra Kapoor
Aziz Nazan
Anuradha Paudwal
SONGS
Written & Composed by
Ranjit Kapoor
Orchestrated & Conducted by Uttam Singh
Recorded by
Daman Sood
MUSIC
Uttam Singh
CAMERA
Sharad Navle
Pintu Chowdhry
Abdul / Parveen / Ambalal / Sakharam
EDITING
Renu Saluja
RE-RECORDING
Mangesh Desai
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION
Davinder Mohini Ahuja
MANAGER PRODUCTION
Lalit Ahuja
FINANCIAL CONTROLLER A.L.Ahuja
WRITTEN, PRODUCED & DIRECTED BY
Ashok Ahuja
AADHARSHILA is a film about a young filmmaker--a man who finds himself at a point of beginning in his career and in his life. It portrays the beliefs and hopes of young people and measures the odds against them.
It is a story of dreams, of humiliation, of conviction, and of courage.
1982 / HINDI / FEATURE / EASTMANCOLOR / 35MM / 130 MINUTES
[Available with English Sub-titles]
FILMDUKATEN [1982]
Mannheim International Film Festival
“...for its humour and irony, and the courage to show emotions...”
RAJAT KAMAL (Silver Lotus) [1982]
National Award - Best First Film
“...for making a bold statement on the aspirations and frustrations of the young generation of film-makers he himself represents and for a very sensitive treatment of the relationship between an idealist director and an inscrutable story-writer.”
FILMFARE CRITICS AWARD [1982]
Critics’ Choice for the ‘Best Film of the Year’.
International Film Festival of India, CALCUTTA 1982 National Film Festival, NEW DELHI, 1982
TASHKENT International Film Festival, 1982 MANNHEIM International Filmwoche, 1982 HONGKONG International Film Festival, 1983 MOSCOW International Film Festival, 1983
PIA Film Festival, TOKYO, 1983
Ajay has just finished his training as film director and has married Asha. He has brought his wife, who is still wearing her wedding bangles, to show her around the Film Institute from where he graduated. As the couple walk across the studio floor he narrates to her the story of Prabhat Studio that was later converted into the Film & TV Institute of India so that the trained and educated young people of the country could come forward and make better films. He talks of the hundreds of young people who came here with countless dreams. Only a handful of them earned a name for themselves, the rest were lost in oblivion. From here they must begin.
Fortunately for Ajay and Asha, they have a house of their own. They paint its walls, scrub its floors and fill it with warmth. She teaches in a school. He too gets work. They make new friends and life begins to move. But Ajay’s desire to express himself through his work constantly haunts him. Through him and his friends we discover the eternal hopes and dreams of young people as also the consistent odds against them.
AADHARSHILA is a story of dreams, of humiliation, of conviction and of courage.
Dig your own fingers
Into your breast
And pull out on your palm
Your bleeding, pulsating heart
Then let us hear it beat.
Enough, enough, enough...
Tell us no more tales
Let us see you become
That new man
A new man, the new man.
-Ashok Ahuja
[from Aadharshila]