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.

The 33rd National Film Awards, presented by Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in the year 1985. Ceremony took place in June 1986.