Punyakoti

Punyakoti (transl. Meritorious act), also released as A Truthful Mother, is a 2020 Indian Sanskrit-language animated film directed by Ravishankar Venkateswaran.^[2][3][4] Ilaiyaraaja composed the soundtrack of the film. It is the first animated film in Sanskrit.^[5]

Punyakoti
Poster for the film Punyakoti
Directed by	Ravishankar Venkateswaran
Written by	Ravishankar Venkateswaran Anwar Ali (dialogues)
Produced by	Sindhu SK
Starring	Revathi Roger Narayan Sneha Ravishankar
Edited by	Manoj Kannoth
Music by	Ilaiyaraaja
Production company	Puppetica Media
Release date	25 March 2020 (2020-03-25)[1]
Running time	85 minutes
Country	India
Language	Sanskrit

Punyakoti is an adaptation of a picture book for children written by Ravishankar,^[6] was produced through crowdsourcing and it is the first Sanskrit animated film. The film got certified from Central Board of Film Certification on 18 March 2020, but its theatrical release was halted due to Corona pandemic. Finally Samskrita Bharati premiered the film through online streaming platform Vimeo on 25 March 2020 and Netflix added the film to its platform on 31 March 2020.^[1][7][5]

Summary

Punyakoti is based on a Kannada language folksong in Karnataka, whose original source is the eighteenth chapter of Srishtikhand of Padma Purana, about a cow that speaks the truth at all times.^{[citation needed]} The story is set in Karunadu, a village along the banks of Kaveri during the Vedic period.

Cast

• Revathi as Punyakoti
• Roger Narayan as Kalinga^[8]
• Sneha Ravishankar
• SR Leela
• Vidya Shankar

Release

Punyakoti was first scheduled to release in 2016 but was later delayed to 2018.^[2][9][10] The film was shown at the 2019 Film Bazaar.^[11] The film's theatre release was scheduled in April 2020 but was stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic and was released digitally on Netflix in the same month.^{[10][11][12][13]}

See also

• Sanskrit cinema