MUMBAI: Four days, 33 films, and a closing night that already belongs to the awards season.
Chitrapataka 2026, the Maharashtra government's official Marathi film festival, runs from November 15 to 18 at the P L Deshpande Maharashtra Kala Academy complex in Prabhadevi. It is organised by the Maharashtra Film, Stage and Cultural Development Corporation under the state cultural affairs department.
Cultural affairs minister Ashish Shelar will inaugurate it on November 15. Department secretary Kiran Kulkarni and the corporation's managing director Swati Mhase-Patil will be present, along with figures from the film industry.
'Bandhu', starring Upendra Limaye and Jitendra Joshi, opens the festival. 'Gondhal' closes it on November 18. The film, built around the traditional Gondhal ritual theatre form, is India's official entry to the Oscars this year, and the festival has given it the closing slot on that strength.
Across the four days, 33 films will be screened along with about 20 sessions on cinema. The sessions are built around craft and content — how subjects are chosen, how a story is structured, and what filmmakers are trying with the form.
The festival's stated purpose is to put the range of Marathi cinema in front of audiences, including work that release calendars and screen counts leave out. That is the part a four-day festival can do and a Friday release cannot.
Entry and registration details are to be announced by the corporation, with the schedule available at the academy complex and on its website.
The timing is deliberate. Marathi cinema's post-Diwali pile-up begins on November 12 and runs to November 27, with close to a dozen releases and five arriving on November 20 alone. A festival in the middle of that rush is both a display and an argument about which films deserve a longer life.