Court actor Vira Sathidar passes away after COVID-19 related complications

Vira Sathidar in The Court. Picture courtesy/mid-day archives

Actor-activist Vira Sathidar, best known for featuring in the National Award-winning film Court, died on Tuesday due to COVID-19 related complications, filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane confirmed. The actor, who was in his early sixties, was admitted to Nagpur hospital after he contracted the coronavirus. According to Tamhane, who directed him in the acclaimed 2014 Court, the actor was put on a ventilator and breathed his last around 3 AM.

"It's true. He passed away at around 3 AM in the hospital. He had COVID-19 and was on a ventilator. It's an extremely unfortunate news. It is yet to sink in," Tamhane told PTI. Sathidar rose to prominence after playing the role of protest singer Narayan Kamble in "Court", who is accused of encouraging a manhole worker to commit suicide through one of his folk songs.

Tamhane said the news of Sathidar's demise has come as a "huge shock" to him. "He was not only an actor, activist and a poet but also one of the nicest human beings I've met. I still can't process it. He was a fantastic person and I can now only think of the time we spent making Court," the director told PTI.

Court, directed by Chaitanya Tamhane, was about the country's creaking judicial system. It depicted the trial of a folk singer accused of sedition. Vira Sathidar played the lead role as Narayan Kamble. Court, a film with dialogues in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English languages, featured several amateur actors and was directed on a shoestring budget. The film won India's national film award this year and writer-director Tamhane picked up the Lion of the Future award for debut films at the 2014 Venice Film Festival. Court caught attention with his unique filmmaking style and won over 30 awards at film festivals worldwide, including Best Film in the Horizons section at the 2014 Venice Film Festival. Tamhane was awarded the Lion Of The Future at the prestigious film fest. Apart from Court, which was India's official entry to Oscars 2016, Sathidar went on to feature in two more short films.

With inputs from PTI