Smita Patil

"In the three decades since Smita Patil died -- at the impossibly young age of thirty-one -- she has unwaveringly been one of Indian cinema's biggest icons. That is unusual enough for a 'parallel cinema' actor, rendered more remarkable in a career that spanned a mere ten years. Patil, one of the leading lights of the New Indian Cinema of the mid-1970s, has a body of work that would make veterans proud. Smita Patil: A Brief Incandescence tells her remarkable story, tracing it from her childhood to stardom, controversial marriage and untimely death. Her close friends remember 'Smi' as outspoken…