Sakuntalaṃ (Sanskrit Language: Śakuntalā) is a Sanskrit language historical film directed by Dushyanth Sridhar, a renowned speaker, writer and researcher on Indian scriptures. It is an adaptation of Kalidasa's work Abhijnana Shakuntalam. The film is produced by Dushyanth Sridhar and Srinivas Kannaa under Desika Daya Productions. The movie stars debutants Shubham Sahrawat and Payal Shetty in the leading roles. The movie was released on 12-Aug 2022 in BookMyShow Stream OTT platform commemorating the World Sanskrit Day.
Cast and Crew
Apart from the Director and producer, there are some key people who are associated with this film project. Rajkumar Bharati, the great-grandson of Subramania Bharathi, has composed the music while Sai Shravanam, the sound recordist of the Academy Award-winning film Life Of Pi, is the music producer for the film. Two-time National Award-winner AS Lakshminarayan has done the audiography and the editing of the film is done by five-time National Award-winner B Lenin. National Award Winner Pattanam Rasheed is the makeup artist in the film. The costume designer of the film is a Chennai-based textile designer Lakshmi Srinath.
Payal Vijay Shetty as Sakuntala
Shubham Jaibeer Sahrawat as Dushyanta
Siri Chandrasekhar as Anasuya
Subhaga Santhosh as Priyamvada
Pavithra Srinivasan as Gautami
Y Gee Mahendra as Kanva
T V Varadarajan as Vaikhanasa
Mohanram as Durvasa
Renjith-Vijna as Vishwamitra-Menaka
Sanjeev S as Sharngarava
R Lakshminarayanan as Shardvata
Raaghav Ranganathan as Madhavya
C Lakshmi Kumar as Bhadrasena
S M Sivakumar as Somarata
Ramya Ramnarayan as Rajamata
Maanas Chavali as Syala
Govindasamy as Purusha
K Balaji and K Bharathwaj as Tapasvi
Shambhavi Jagadish as Tapasvini
Dwarkesh Srivatsan as Raivataka
Master Vishnu Kaushik as Bharata(Sarvadamana) C S Karthic Kumar as Suta Harish as Matali
Critical Response and Accolades
At the Rajasthan International Film Festival 2022 held at Jodhpur, the movie won the Special Viewers' choice award for Best Regional Feature Film. Tejas Punia in Bollywoodlocha awarded 4 stars for the movie while saying, "Sridhar has made his debut movie in a very beautiful manner, no matter how many times you have read this work, you will want to watch this movie".