Make way please, Tollywood, we finally have a Telugu film with heart by an independent director, Rajnesh Domalpalli. Created for his MFA thesis at Columbia, Vanaja explores issues of caste, politics, poverty, and sexuality in a sensitive and compassionate manner.

Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) is the 14 year old daughter of a poor, low caste fisherman. Because money is low, and because she is entranced by Kuchipudi, Vanaja goes to work for Rama Devi (Urmila Dammannagari), the local landlady and renowned dancer, as a farmhand. Because of Vanaja's lively personality, she soon charms Rama Devi into dance and voice lessons. Rama Devi begins to appreciate Vanaja's growing talent, and they give a performance in the village. Vanaja's future as a dancer seems to be set.

Suddenly, Shekhar (Karan Singh), Rama Devi's 23 year old politically ambitious son, returns home from the U.S. He and Vanaja flirt in a seemingly innocuous manner, but this is the first time that I began to feel uneasy as a viewer – Vanaja is still only 15 and in an entirely different social class than Shekhar. Still, nothing seems to happen between them, and we get different glimpses into Vanaja growing up as she flirts with another village boy, Ram Babu (Krishna Garlapati), takes care of her alcoholic father, works at the landlady's house, and still manages to play with her best friend.

The film takes a turn as Shekhar's role increases, and we see his insecurities. Why is a well-educated, handsome man with political prospects (he is running for local election) interested in a much younger girl? The watershed scene occurs when Shekhar is distributing wages to the local townspeople, and Vanaja notices an error in his accounting, humiliating him in front of the village and his mother. Determined to have control over his life, he rapes Vanaja, and she becomes pregnant. Rama Devi quickly comes to know about this, is furious with her son, and tries to get an abortion. Vanaja, however, runs away to keep the baby, and the rest of the film focuses on the class-defined struggles between Vanaja and Shekhar and Rama Devi.

While the central theme of Vanaja is the way the upper caste take advantage of the villagers, the film manages to remain hopeful, mainly because of its cheerful protagonist. Mamata Bhukya creates a confident, mischievous and highly believable heroine, with whom the viewer can identify and root for. Throughout all the hardships she goes through, she remains optimistic that things will get better, even defiant of the upper classes; this keeps the film from taking the didactic tone that films with such themes often fall into. Bhukya's acting and dancing is impressive for a girl who had done neither before being cast in the film – she carries her role, and, indeed, the film very well.

The entire cast, in fact, is composed of new actors, and it is refreshing to see natural actors without the histrionics of Tollywood films. Domalpalli deliberately looked for unknown actors, in fact, to give the film a sense of authenticity, and has succeeded in that respect. The characters are complex, and the actors fill their roles completely, if occasionally displaying amateurism. He portrays many aspects of village life and the current state of caste affairs accurately, evoking a strong image of rural Andhra through vivid shots of the houses and farms.

So even though there are occasional lapses in continuity, and some dialogues and interactions between characters seem to go nowhere, the message of Vanaja, its clever use of language and scenery, and even its occasionally hilarious glimpses into village life make it definitely worth a view. Vanaja opens in Boston on September 21, at the Landmark Theatres in Kendall Square.

Manaswini Garimella is a rising junior at Wellesley College.

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