Maharashtra State Film Awards, one of the prestigious awards of Marathi cinema, are awarded by the Government of Maharashtra to Marathi language films and artists. They were first awarded in 1963.

Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar were an Indian filmmaker duo working predominantly in Marathi cinema and Marathi theatre. Bhave and Sukthankar had made seventeen feature films, more than fifty short films, and four TV serials; all of which had been written by Bhave. Sunil Sukthankar, a Film and Television Institute of India graduate (1989) is also an actor and a lyricist. He has written more than 90 songs for their own films as well as various other Marathi and Hindi films. The duo had won various national and international accolades for the films Doghi (1995), Dahavi Fa (2002), Vastupurush (2002), Devrai (2004), Astu (2016) and Kaasav (2017). At the 64th National Film Awards, their feature film Kaasav won the prestigious President Golden Lotus National Award.