Exclusive! Dr. Mohan Agashe mourns the demise of filmmaker Sumitra Bhave: She saw cinema as a vehicle to appeal to humanity through medicine

Marathi

cinema's legendary and

National Film Awards

winner Sumitra Bhave passed away early Monday morning in Pune. Celebrities from the industry have been sharing their grief in different ways. Bhave, 78, was undergoing treatment at Sahyadri hospital for a lung infection.

ETimes reached out to Bollywood and Marathi cinema's veteran actor Dr. Mohan Agashe who worked with Bhave in National Award films like '

Kaasav

' 'Devrai', and 'Astu', has expressed his grief, sighing "I know her closely enough only for last seven to eight years, since we did 'Astu' together. I also did a film 'Devrai' and 'Kaasav' but unless you work with the person you don't know much about the person"

Agashe is all praise for his departed

filmmaker

as he says, " I am not a producer, I am not a rich guy, I am primarily doctor and actor. But seeing her commitment and the way she makes films and looks that films much more beyond. She never compromised her two favourite themes 'Health and Women'. I think there is no other filmmaker in the world who has made excellent and award-winning feature films on health issues that have a stigma. She made '

Zindagi Zindabad

' on HIV, 'Devrai' on mental disorder. These films were not based on disease, it was about the people and family. It was a human story. I think nobody has dealt the way she has done with these issues"

"My tribute to her will be, I always try to promote short retrospective of Sumitra on the way she looked health in a cinema or she saw cinema as a vehicle to appeal to humanity through medicine" Agashe added.