Around two decades ago, Paresh Mokashi gave the Marathi theatre audience a play called Mukkam Post Bombilwadi, which revolved around an absurd but hilarious story. For the big screen, Mokashi and team adapt the same premise on a cinematic scale. Set in 1942, Mukkam Post Bombilwadi unfolds in three locations – Adolf Hitler’s office in Germany, Winston Churchill’s war room in London, and the sleepy village of Bombilwadi in Konkan, Maharashtra. Amid mounting tensions of World War II, Hitler (Prashant Damle) gets a call about some innovation in Japan that can help him win the war. In no mood to waste time, Hitler decides to fly to Japan on his own (despite not knowing how to fly a plane). In the meantime, Churchill’s (Anand Ingale) spies tell him about Hitler’s plan and the British PM vows to stop Hitler come what may. The story then shifts to Bombilwadi, where multiple things are unfolding – a play is being rehearsed, a British police officer in love with Hitler’s partner Eva Braun is more focused on staging Shakespeare’s plays than maintaining law and order in Bombilwadi, and freedom fighters are plotting to send the Brits back with the ‘do or die’ slogan. In between all this, Hitler crash-lands in Bombilwadi. How, and what happens later is what the film is largely about.

In the early 1970s, a series of murders left the residents of Manvat terrorized, and people of Maharashtra in shock. A small town in Parbhani district, Manvat saw people, mostly women, being killed over a span of about two years with a black magic ritualistic motive, as the cops would later find out. Ashish Bende’s series attempts to take a deep dive into the case through the eyes of late cop Ramakant Kulkarni’s lens. Manvat Murders is based on Kulkarni’s book Footprints on the Sand of Time, which documented his high-profile cases, including the Manvat case which he was assigned.

Often, it is the films made with passion that leave a lasting impression on the minds of the viewers. Nothing larger-than-life, no grand sets, nothing unbelievable – just a simple story told with sincerity and made relatable by its characters. If Amaltash was to be explained in brief, this would suffice. Amaltash is a simple, straightforward story of a gifted musician named Rahul (Rahul Deshpande) whose life has changed after an incident in his past. Rahul has learned the importance of soaking in the small pleasures of life and being composed in the most strenuous of situations. Enter Keerti (Pallavi Paranjape), the NRI from Canada who lands in Pune to meet her grandmother (Pratibha Padhye) and has a chance encounter with Rahul who is at her granny’s house to tune their piano. Taken by Rahul’s musical prowess, Keerti meets him again at Rahul’s friend’s music store. They talk and bond over music and soon strike a friendship. Love blossoms organically. But are they meant to spend their life together?