''Neela'' is a 2001 Indian

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

-language

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

T. S. Nagabharana Talakadu Srinivasaiah Nagabharana (born 23 January 1953), commonly known as T. S. Nagabharana, is an Indian film director, in the Kannada film industry and a pioneer of parallel cinema. He is one of the few film directors to have straddled t ...

and written by Kotiganahalli Ramaiah. Featuring

Gayatri Jayaraman Gayatri Jayaraman is an Indian actress. She played the role of Devi Adishakti in Shree Ganesh & has appeared predominantly in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam language films. Early life Gayatri Jayaraman was educated at Adarsh Vidyalaya an ...

in the lead protagonist role, it also stars

Ananth Nag Dr Anant Nagarkatte (born 4 September 1948) is an Indian actor whose predominant contribution has been in Kannada cinema. He has acted in over 300 films which include over 200 Kannada films as well as Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Malayalam and Eng ...

, Mayoori, Shivadhwaj, Jayanthi and Naveen Mayur in key roles. The story is about a nomadic folk singer, Neela, who belongs to the "Neelagararu" tribe. She develops throat cancer and suddenly loses her voice. The story highlights her struggle to survive in her conservative society. ''Neela'' was screened at the Indian Panorama international festival and won many accolades for the content. The film won the third best film at the

Karnataka State Film Awards Karnataka State Film Awards are the most notable and prestigious film awards given for Kannada film industry in Karnataka, India. These are considered the highest awards for Kannada language films. They are given annually by the Government ...

, and Gayatri Jayaraman won Best Actress at the Cinema Express Awards.

Cast

as Neela * Shivadhwaj as Sanjeeva *

as Shivajja *

Sarath Babu Sathyam Babu Dixithulu (born 31 July 1951), known by his stage name Sarath Babu, is an Indian actor known for his works predominantly in Tamil and Telugu cinema. He has worked in more than 200 films. He has appeared in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and ...

as Palegar Jagadevaraya * Jayanthi as Jagadevaraya's mother *

Rangayana Raghu Kotturu Chikkarangappa Raghunath (born 17 April 1965), known by his screen name Rangayana Raghu, is an Indian film and stage actor, known for his work in Kannada cinema. Portraying mostly comic and negative-shaded characters, he has appeared ...

as Siddayya, Neela's father *

Naveen Mayur Naveen Mayur (25 November 1978 – 3 October 2010) was an Indian actor who was known for his work in Kannada cinema. He appeared in more than 30 films starting 2000 before he died from jaundice in 2010. Early life Mayur was born on 25 November ...

as Karthik * Enagi Nataraj as History professor * Mayoori as Chandri, Jagadevaraya's daughter *

Picchalli Srinivas Picchalli Srinivas is an Indian singer, music director, theatre personality and activist, known for his works in Kannada. Apart from numerous folk songs, Srinivas has sung a few film songs. For his song "Dodda Gowdara" in the movie ''Amasa'', he ...

as mute person * Apoorva Bargur as Geethanjali

Soundtrack

The music was composed by the renowned composer

Vijaya Bhaskar Vijaya Bhaskar ( kan, ವಿಜಯಭಾಸ್ಕರ್; 1924–2002) was an Indian music director and composer who composed music for several mainstream and experimental feature films in the Kannada film industry. Scoring music for over 600 fe ...

, his last work before his death. The soundtrack consisted of 12 tracks most of which were sung by acclaimed playback singer

Vani Jairam Vani Jairam (born as Kalaivani on 30 November 1945), also credited as Vani Jayaram, is an Indian singer. She is best known as a playback singer in South Indian cinema. Vani's career started in 1971 and has spanned over five decades. She has do ...

Reception

A critic from ''indiainfo'' wrote that "Overall if you have lots of time to spare and want to catch a movie, ''Neela'' might just be it!"http://web.archive.org/web/20011213235736/http://movies.indiainfo.com/kannada/reviews/index.html

References

External links

Neela songs at MIO

2001 films 2000s Kannada-language films Films scored by Vijaya Bhaskar Films directed by T. S. Nagabharana {{2000s-Kannada-film-stub