Advocating the ‘T’ movement

Hailing from Warangal district, S Prithvi Chakravarthy recently made a 45-minute documentary film ‘Malidasha’ to portray the role of advocates in Telangana movement.

Chakravarthy did Theatre Arts from University of Hyderabad and later he completed Law from Osmania University and now he is a practicing lawyer in the High Court.

Prithvi states that he always wanted to show the problems of society to the government, in the process he did various documentaries and short films.

About ‘Malidasha’ he says, “This documentary shows the Telangana moment right from the beginning in 2009 until the formation of the State in 2014.

It also explores how advocates saved students at Osmania University and Kakatiya University from repression and police brutality during the movement.

It also explains how Telangana lawyer’s grabbed national attention by crossing the Parliamentary gates in a protest in New Delhi. Producer, Toranala Giri helped me to the make this documentary possible.”

Prithvi informs that presently there are around 25,000 lawyers in Telangana and their lives are insecure compared to other fields.

“Telangana government has ignored the efforts of advocates in separate state movement. Advocates are the main reason for formation of new state,” he says.
“Despite no cases for practice at the time of protest we continued our support for formation of Telangana State.

Without advocates there could not be a student movement at that time. Through this documentary we are requesting the Telangana government to provide health cards and house facilities to advocates like government employees and journalists,” he adds.

Speaking about his previous works, he shares “I did various documentaries and short films. And, my short film ‘Yaadi’, which is about a domestic child labour and the film bagged an award at the New York Short Film Festival in 2005. I have always made films, which portrays the problems in the society.”