Nearly shelved film revived on OTT

It was nearly a four-year wait for director Praneeth Yaron’s labour of love, Sita on the Road, to see the light of the day through the OTT platform ZEE5 last week. The road film featuring four female actors in prominent roles – Kalpika Ganesh, Gayathri Gupta, Khatera Hakima, Nesa Farhadi – traces the lives of women from diverse backgrounds who connect on a road trip. Sita on the Road didn’t attract many buyers over these years and was considered shelved for a long time.

Praneeth Yaron has donned many roles in the film – as a story and screenplay writer, director, music director besides penning the dialogues. Sita on the Road was shot on a 1 crore budget (huge, given there’s no bankable face who could pull crowds) and is a film that looks at several issues that women face including slut shaming, sexism and the absence of consent in relationships. The film was priced at Rs 99 though no major effort was made to publicise its OTT release.

Upon release on March 5, the film didn’t garner great reviews from most portals with reviewers criticising the amateurish execution, soulless performances. Sita on the Road doesn’t have a great storyline and is very vague at times with hardly any redeeming factor for the audiences. The filmmaker should consider himself lucky that he was spared of humiliation at the theatres through the direct digital release. Sita on the Road is a reminder that there’s no purpose for a film if it doesn’t engage audiences or have any recognisable faces or respect the technicalities of the medium.