Amar Jyoti (1936)

Saudamini loses custody of her son after a callous judgement by the authorities and turns her rage into rebellion: she takes to the sea as a pirate, attacking the ships of the powerful and championing other women wronged by society. Her campaign grows more complicated when a young woman she rescues and a young man she captures fall in love, and the past she has tried to bury catches up with her. Amar Jyoti is a striking early feminist adventure from V. Shantaram, then at Prabhat in Pune, with Durga Khote in a commanding lead role and Shanta Apte as the young heroine. Its blend of swashbuckling spectacle and social argument was ambitious for its time, and it remains one of the most talked-about Indian films of the 1930s.