Sabari (2024)

Sabari (2024) is an action thriller film by director Anilkatz. It features Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Mime Gopi, Ganesh Venkatraman, Shashank Siddamsetty and Baby Niveksha. The film centers on Sanjana, a staunch single mother, who is fighting to protect her daughter Riya, and will also re-discover the dark secrets of her past. While the peril posed by the nefarious Surya reoccurs, Sanjana will team up with advocate Rahul, as she needs to reclaim her life and her truth. Sanjana's life was settled as a single mother with a young daughter, Riya, living in Visakhapatnam. However, Sanjana's world came crashing down when unusual events made her question the truth in relation to her child. Sanjana starts suspecting that her daughter Riya is not her biological child, and with this suspicion, she starts to uncover painful memories from her past. It was many years ago when Sanjana escaped an abusive marriage to Aravind, a man who had hidden evil secrets. When the criminal Surya entered her life out of the blue, there were insecurities, but there was also a major issue that had surfaced with Surya, she had to fight the fear of the past again. Surya's comeback not only jeopardises her life but Riya's as well, and Sanjana will stop at nothing to save her daughter. Along the way, she meets Rahul, a compassionate lawyer, who helps Sanjana wade through overloaded information that touches on kidnapping, identity theft, and deceit. By separating fact from fiction, Sanjana grows stronger and works to confront those who sought to destroy her. With a climactic resolution, Sanjana nears her demise yet surmounts Surya, and at last finds her daughter, peaceful and certain in her existence. The movie closes with Sanjana re-discovering and re-claiming her life in celebration of courage and the boundless love of a mother. Sabari transcends an emotionally intense and suspenseful experience through the lens of raw human resistance. It is a project characterised by an intensity of atmosphere and sincere emotional heft, generating viewer interest throughout its entirety. While the film subtended a very mixed public perception as a whole, Varalaxmi's performance stoke admiration for its emotional and ruthless honesty. Varalaxmi's performance added resonance and reality to the narrative. The film was later awarded Best Story Film at the Dasari Film Awards 2025.