Anup Bhandari: I knew Rishab Shetty is talented as an actor, but I didn’t expect him to perform that well in ‘Kantara’ – Exclusive! – Times of India

“I am happy about the current scenario and there are good directors in the Kannada film industry. The reach of the Kannada industry has become much wider in the past 10 years. Kannada films are slowly reaching out to a wider set of audiences across India and the world. So it is a good time to be in the industry,” shares Anup in an exclusive conversation with ETimes.

With Rishab Shetty’s ‘Kantara’ ruling the box office in India and Kannada films getting recognition globally, Anup feels it is a transition that has taken place over the recent years. “It’s a gradual change. One cannot pinpoint exactly where it started. But as an observer, (I can say that) it started in the year 2013 with Pawan Kumar’s ‘Lucia’. So that was the first film of this century. I think concept-oriented films actually work for the audience. After ‘Lucia’, there were quite a few films that were acclaimed, and post those films came ‘Rangi Taranga’, which was a commercial film and saw a tremendous success. It was actually the first film to cement its place in the world of the box office. It appeared in the New York Box office listing in 2015. So the collections at that time were almost unheard of. Also, a few non-commercial, art films suddenly started attracting the audience which brought confidence in the makers. Of course, Yash’s ‘KGF’ was a game changer at the Indian box office as it was released in multiple languages in India and made a lot of money. ‘KGF 2’ also did well which was followed by ‘Vikrant Rona’ as it was also released in Hindi and Telugu and it did well at the box office. So I think it’s a step-by-step change or a gradual change that has made the Kannada film industry shine on the national level. Moreover, it’s not just one person or a film but it’s multiple talented people coming together to take the industry to the next level.”

While films are being made on a pan-India level and getting dubbed in several languages, we asked Anup about the fate of remakes. “Now that people are getting movies in their languages and especially with OTT, even if they don’t watch the film in the theatre; at some point they watch all the highly rated movies that are appreciated by other people. So remaking the same film, right now, does not make much sense. Or only if remaking a movie that is so low profile that no one watched it… Having said that, I am not against someone who is remaking films. A film like ‘Departed’ which is a Korean film was remade into Kannada and was equally appreciated because the same subject was presented in a different manner. Unfortunately here in India, whenever we try to use the word remake, it is termed as ‘copy’, which is an unfortunate thing. But somewhere we need to blur those lines,” he says.

Kannada cinema’s recent sensation ‘Kantara’ and its director-actor Rishab Shetty have been the talk of the town and Anup Bhandari revealed his plans of collaborating with the star. He divulges, ‘Kantara’ is a good film but I have not thought about collaborating with Rishab yet. But I would love to work with him. In fact, we all are good friends. We attend each other’s film premiere and share our thoughts on films, and since we are like-minded we are open about sharing thoughts on each other’s film. We talk about the positives and the negatives.”

Not just the audience but Anup Bhandari too is baffled by the performance given by Rishab in ‘Kantara’ and said that it was unexpected. “I knew Rishab is a talented actor since he made his acting debut and he also did a film titled ‘Ricky’, where he did a very small role, and since then I am telling him that he is very good with his comic timing. He was brilliant in ‘Bell Bottom’ and with ‘Kantara’ he took it to the next level and nobody expected it. In fact, even after knowing his talent as an actor, I didn’t expect him to perform that well,” admits the director.

Anup Bhandari’s last outing ‘Vikrant Rona’ starring Kicha Sudeepa recently completed 100 days of its release. We asked the director about ‘Vikrant Rona 2’, and his plans on working with Sudeep once again after ‘VR’ and his next project. “We are happy about ‘Vikrant Rona’ completing 100 days after its release and also for the success of the film. We are now planning our next film and will soon announce it. And we are planning to do it on a much bigger scale because now we have the confidence that people have loved our work. After seeing the commercial success ‘VR’ we are now kicked to do our next film. We are doing one more film with Kicha Sudeep because apart from being a superstar and a great actor, he is also a family to us. I am very comfortable working with him and he also loves working with me and we share a great equation,” he told.

“We discussed a line much before ‘Vikrant Rona’ was released. So there was a thought that came to my mind and we even discussed it at that point in time. But I didn’t want to get into the world of ‘VR’ so soon. I didn’t want to carry forward the same characters for another 2-3 years and wanted to explore something different and come back to ‘Vikrant Rona 2,” the director signs off with a smile.