Bollywood Home » Popular Movie Reviews » Bollywood Tragic Movies » Matrubhoomi 'Matrubhoomi' is a Hindi film released in the year 2003 in India. It is directed by Manish Jha. Matrubhoomi deals with a sensitive issue. This film showcases the impact of female foeticide and female infanticide on the gender balance of a society. The storyline of Matrubhoomi bears some resemblance to the stories of real-life instances of gender imbalance and economics. This is a common problem in India which results in fraternal polyandry and bride buying in some parts of the country.

Matrubhoomi is one of the Bollywood tragic movies that has received a lot of critical acclaim and paeans. It belongs to the category of offbeat Bollywood films. This film lays emphasis on a common problem faced by India specially in states like Punjab and Haryana. In these states, female foeticide and female infanticide has risen to a level of threat. Matrubhoomi points out the problems that a society can face due to female foeticide.

Awards received by Matrubhoomi

• Some of the awards received by the film Matrubhoomi include the following:
• Audience Award for Best Film at the Kozlin Film Festival 2003, Poland
• Fipresci Award in non-competitive section at the Venice Film Festival 2003
• Audience Award for Best Film at Florence Indian Film Festival, 2003
• Audience Award for Best Foreign Film at Thessaloniki Film Festival, 2003

Cast of Matrubhoomi

• Tulip Joshi - Kalki
• Sudhir Pandey - Ramsharan, the father of five sons
• Sushant Singh - Sooraj
• Vinamra Pancharia - Raghu
• Aditya Shrivastav - Raghu's Uncle
• Piyush Mishra - Jagannath
• Pankaj Jha - Rakesh
• Sanjay Kumar - Brijesh

Story of Matrubhoomi

The film, Matrubhoomi begins in a rural setting, with the delivery of a baby girl to a village couple. As the girl is born, her disappointed father, who was hoping a boy, drowns her in vat of milk in a public ceremony. Many years later, this dangerous trend leads to the village being populated only by males. The male members of the society are shown to be willing to go to any extent to procure spouses for themselves.

As the story moves forward, a father is shown marrying off all his sons to a single woman, named Kalki, living some distance from the village. The father literally buys her from her father. Each night, Kalki played by Tulip Joshi, is forced to sleep with one of the sons, and even the father gets his weekly night with her. As the youngest son tries to save her, he is killed by his jealous brothers, and an escape attempt with a sympathetic domestic servant fails miserably. The film ends on a violent but hopeful note. As she bears a baby girl in the end, the men of the village kill each other off over rights to her and her child.

Thus, Matrubhoomi is a movie that must be watched for the sake of social awareness.

Authentic online information on Matrubhoomi is offered only at sitagita.