Punyakoti

Punyakoti, also released as A Truthful Mother, is a 2020 Indian Sanskrit-language animated film directed by Ravishankar Venkateswaran. It is the first animated film in Sanskrit.

Punyakoti is an adaptation of a picture book for children written by Ravishankar, was produced through crowdsourcing and it is the first Sanskrit animated film. The film got certified from Central Board of Film Certification on 18 March 2020, but its theatrical release was halted due to Corona pandemic. Finally Samskrita Bharati premiered the film through online streaming platform Vimeo on 25 March 2020 and Netflix added the film to its platform on 31 March 2020.

Summary
Punyakoti is based on a famous folksong in Karnataka written in the Kannada language about a cow that speaks the truth at all times. The story depicts man-animal conflict in a form that is both entertaining and informative. The movie carries the message of honesty and living in harmony with nature. The story is set in Karunadu, a village along the banks of Kaveri during the Vedic period. The original source of the folksong is the eighteenth chapter of Srishtikhand of Padma Purana.

Cast

 * Revathi as Punyakoti
 * Roger Narayan as Kalinga
 * Sneha Ravishankar
 * SR Leela
 * Vidya Shankar

Release
Punyakoti was first scheduled to release in 2016 but was later delayed to 2018. The film was shown at the 2019 Film Bazaar. The film's theatre release was scheduled in April 2020 but was stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic and was released digitally on Netflix in the same month.