Eetha trailer out October 30; Shraddha Kapoor's Vithabai biopic opens December 4

Maddock Films and Kathputli Creations scheduled the trailer of Eetha, the Hindi biopic of Tamasha and Lavani artist Vithabai Bhau Mang Narayangaonkar, for release on Friday, October 30, 2026. Shraddha Kapoor plays Vithabai in the film, which is directed by Laxman Utekar. The makers have confirmed that Eetha will reach cinemas on December 4, 2026, after the film was moved from its earlier August date. A day before the trailer, on October 29, the team unveiled Randeep Hooda's look as a character called Merchant.

Eetha is one of the few mainstream Hindi films built around Tamasha, the travelling folk theatre of Maharashtra that mixes song, dance, comedy and drama. Tamasha troupes have for generations toured villages and small towns, setting up tents at fairs and festivals. Lavani, the fast, rhythmic song-and-dance form performed mostly by women, is its best-known part. For decades the form carried a social stigma, and many of its artists came from communities that faced caste discrimination. A big-budget film about one of its leading women brings that history to a national audience.

Vithabai's own life gives the film its weight. Biographical records describe her as born in 1935 into a Mang family, a Dalit community, that had run a Tamasha troupe for generations; her father, Bhau Bapu Mang Narayangaonkar, led the troupe that his father had founded. She went on to lead her own touring company and became one of the best-known performers of Lavani and other Tamasha forms. In 1968 she was made president of the Akhil Bharatiya Tamasha Parishad, a body of Tamasha artists, in Pune. She died on January 15, 2002. The Maharashtra government later created a lifetime achievement award in her name for Tamasha artists, and her daughter Mangala Bansode, herself a noted performer, has received it.

The film is produced under the Maddock Films and Kathputli Creations banners, and its music is by the composer duo Ajay-Atul. With a Maharashtrian subject at its centre, the trailer is being watched by audiences in Maharashtra as well as by Hindi film viewers across the country.

The December 4 date also matters for the trade. The film was moved out of August to avoid a crowded box office, and it now sits in a busy December calendar that already includes several large Hindi releases. How the trailer is received will shape how much space Eetha gets in cinemas in its opening week.

Short-term: The trailer gives viewers the first full look at how the film presents Vithabai's life on stage and off it, and at Shraddha Kapoor's performance in the role. Randeep Hooda's Merchant look, shown on October 29, was the last character reveal before the trailer. Early reactions shared online are from single viewers and influencers, and a fuller response will come once audiences have watched it.

Long-term: If the film draws audiences, it could renew interest in Tamasha and Lavani among younger viewers who know the forms mainly through film songs, and in the artists and troupes who still perform them in rural Maharashtra. Biopics of folk artists are rare in Hindi cinema, so Eetha's performance will also be read as a test of whether such stories can carry a mainstream release.

Who is affected: Film audiences across India; Tamasha and Lavani performers and troupes in Maharashtra, whose art form is the film's subject; cinema owners planning December screens; and the families and communities connected to Vithabai's legacy.

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