Nagathihalli Chandrashekar, a professor in Kannada, took to filmmaking with the same ease as he did teaching. The National-Award winning director, started off by writing short stories, many of which were later made into films. Soon he plunged into direction with his debut film Undu Hoda, Kondu Hoda , a satirical comedy featuring Anant Nag and Tara in the lead. This film won the Karnataka State Award.
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Before donning the director’s hat, Nagathihalli wrote screenplays. His work for the film Kadina Benki not only won the National Film Award in the Best Feature Film category but also the Karnataka State Award. Nagathihalli also won National Awards for his films Kotreshi Kanasu , America America and Hoomale.
Undo Hoda, Kondu Hoda revolves around a “cow inspector”, played by Anant Nag who comes to a village from city and dupes innocent villagers. Nagathihalli, who won the Karanataka State Award in the Best Story Writer category, narrates the challenges he faced during the making of his debut film.
“Before Undu Hoda, Kondu Hoda, I had a small journey in films in various forms. I started by writing short stories, which was my best skill. When I completed my Masters, I was approached by a few producers and directors, who wanted to make my stories into films and asked me to even write the script for those selected stories.
During that process, I understood story writing was different from writing a screenplay. Writing short stories has no technical obligations. Soon, I had written scripts for three to four films, which gained critical and commercial success. After this, a producer approached me to direct a film.
Direction was not my cup of tea as I was working as a professor. One inspirational source for me to plunge into direction was Anant Nag. When he read my script for Udbhava , he too suggested I direct my own stories, saying I will be the best person to justify the subject visually.
I started by making short films for TV and also made a few documentaries for children about the environment. Being a teacher, I covered topics such as saving water bodies, birds, trees and so on. I also made a few films for the education department. It all came easily as I was already working as a teacher.
Next, I decided to make a feature film. When you debut as a director, no one welcomes you with a red carpet. We too, respond to the challenges with a positive attitude and are driven by the curiosity about how the film will turn out, whether it will mark my place in the industry and so on — all these add to the tensions.
FOR THE HINDU Daily:Actor turned Politician Anant Nag at the Janata Dal (S) Election Manifesto book release in Bangalore on Monday. Photo:Sampath Kumar_ G_P_Bangalore_05-04-04.
I chose a short story I had written with the mindset that if I fail to justify it, then I will spoil my own story and not another person’s hard work. I selected a short story based on an incident that happened in my village.
The first challenge was to adapt it into a screenplay. I started by making the required creative changes. Anant Nag was the hero and Tara was promoted as a full-fledged heroine with this film. Vijaya Bhaskar was the music director and S Ramachandra the cinematographer. The other choice was to take in as many theatre artistes in this film as possible. One particular actor I chose was the late Karibasavaiah, who went on to become an award-winning actor.
The film tells the story of a man who pretends to be a cow inspector and cheats people by robbing them off their money by building false dreams. The irony of the story is that in a place where there is no drinking water, the protagonist spreads dreams of a land overflowing with milk, butter, ghee...
This literally happened in my village. The day Anant’s character was created — Western clothes, hat and shoes, he said — ‘this is the exact way even the Britishers fooled us years ago. They dressed, spoke smart and exploited us simply because we were astonished with the way they looked and dressed’.
The film also had various underlying shades besides comical elements. It was made in a 12 lakh budget. We chose a village outside Shivamogga, where we camped, shot and slept inside a temple at nights.
During the distribution, I felt every film is a kind of a gamble. Nobody wants to back your work. It was a struggle. One bitter experience I had was when the film was released across Karnataka. The reels were mixed up in a lab and labelled wrongly. Till date, I am not sure if it was done intentionally or unintentionally. After reel five, there was a repeat of the same reels numbered five and six reels, instead of seven and eight. People started calling us, saying the film was repeating itself after a few reels.
Karnataka Bengaluru :27/02/2018 Actor Tara during the 10th Bengaluru International Film Festival at Orion Mall in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Photo: Sampath Kumar G P
We did rectify it in and around Bengaluru, but by the time we fixed that, the damage was done. Those days, everything had to be done manually. So to rectify this issue took us a week. People even got back saying such a thing had never happened in the history of Kannada cinema. That incident hit me with a reality that unseen hands too work behind you, hands that are out there to destroy you even before you take off.
The film was affected and we lost our audience. Though we got the best film and best story award, I only felt they were a compensation and was hurt that the film did not reach the audience the way I wanted it to.
That was when I understood this is a cut throat industry and that no one can be trusted. the film also had two producers — one who invested a major share and lost his money as the other took all the benefits and walked away.
When you come to make a film, it is not just the film you are involved in, but many aspects and challenges that come in the form of finance, management, distributions, backstabbing or booking theatres. Even today many are taken for a ride.
I learnt the alphabets of this profession during my first film itself — how to make a film, choose your artistes, protect your producers and more.
I still feel every Friday we look like little lambs ready for sacrifice, set to be beheaded by the notorious world of distributors. Nothing has changed. The distributors seem to have no love for cinema, but look at us as their next prey. Thirty years later, filmmaking, storytelling and creative presentation of filmmaking has changed; yet we work with the same stagnant, filthy distribution system.
As told to Shilpa Sebastian R
This column chronicles a filmmaker’s first efforts
