Astu

Dr. Chakrapani Shastri (Mohan Agashe), fondly known as Appa, is a retired Sanskrit professor and a former director of Oriental Research Institute, Pune. Shastri currently lives with Ram (Om Bhutkar), a young student as his caretaker, and has been diagnosed with the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. One day, as Ram has to appear for his exams, Shastri's elder daughter Ira (Iravati Harshe) takes Shastri to her house. While driving back home, Ira stops at a shop, requesting Shastri to stay in the car. While sitting in the car, Shastri sees a passing elephant on the road. He gets fascinated and with some help gets himself out of the car and starts following the elephant through the lanes of the city. When Ira comes back and finds her father missing from the car, she and her husband, Madhav (Milind Soman), starts looking for Shastri at various places and also reports him to the police station.

As Shastri keeps following Laxmi—the elephant, her mahout Anta (Nachiket Purnapatre) tries to get Shastri back to his house. However, Shastri does not remember anything and reaches mahout's house where he meets mahout's wife Channamma (Amruta Subhash). She takes care of Shastri along with her new-born and offers him a new family. Ira informs Devika (Devika Daftardar) about their missing father but Devika blames Ira for the happening and suggests an old-age home for him. Police traces the elephant's whereabouts and finds Shastri but accuses mahout for kidnapping Shastri and informs Ira. Shastri refuses to go back to Ira and wants to stay with Channamma but she convinces him. Shastri agrees and Ira requests police to drop all the charges.

• Mohan Agashe as Dr. Chakrapani Shastri or Appa
• Iravati Harshe as Ira, Shastri's elder daughter
• Amruta Subhash as Channamma
• Milind Soman as Madhav, Ira's husband
• Devika Daftardar as Rahi, Shastri's younger daughter
• Jyoti Subhash as Malti Kaku
• Nachiket Purnapatre as Anta, mahout

Actor Mohan Agashe was approached by a Marathi short filmmaker with the idea of a project that deals with Alzheimer's disease. Though Agashe liked the idea, he wasn't satisfied with the script and suggested the filmmaker to improvise. However, in spite of script developments, Agashe found limitations with it. Later, he suggested the filmmaker to meet Sumitra Bhave who had finished working her earlier film. She worked on the script for a month and modified it to be of a full-fledged feature film. After the shooting was completed, one of the co-producers backed out of post-production. Agashe contributed from his pension and provident fund to complete the remaining work.[1]

Though the film was completed in 2013, it did not find any distributor and was released through crowdfunding in 2016.[2] [3] Though, it was released in Pune in 2014, it was re-released to qualify for the Maharashtra state film subsidy, which requires the film to be released in ten state districts.[4] It was also screened at the New York Film Festival (NYFF) and a special screening was organised at the Harvard University campus for awareness towards problems of the elderly due to lack of human interaction and the care needed followed by a panel discussion with participations from Mohan Agashe, and professors Arthur Kleinman and Diana L. Eck.[5]

The film was appreciated for its depiction of Alzheimer's/Dementia and the performances of its leads. Namrata Joshi of The Hindu writes that "though the film is about loss of memory it's structured and built around a series of recollections" and mentions that the film builds awareness about Alzheimer's disease but does not "slip into sermonizing, it remains sensitive not sentimental".[6] Mihir Bhanage of The Times of India writes that the "splendid narration and direction coupled with excellent performances are high point of this film".[7]

The film won several awards upon release.

• Astu at IMDb