Kaatera (2023)

Kaatera is a blacksmith in a village where a handful of upper-caste landlords own the fields and the rest of the village works them in near bondage. When the government brings in land reforms promising land to the tiller, the landlords do everything they can to block it, and Kaatera, a man of quiet strength, stands up for the farmers, at great personal cost. The story spans the 1970s and is framed by an investigation into a mass grave decades later. Darshan leads the film with Jagapathi Babu as the chief landlord, and it introduced Aradhana Ram, daughter of actress Malashri. A rural period drama with large-scale action, it was one of the biggest Kannada box-office successes of its time.