Among the several films that ran successfully for 100 days or more, K M Chaitanya’s Aa Dinagalu was perhaps the quietest to celebrate the achievement. A finely crafted film, Aa Dinagalu showcased the nefarious activities of the Bangalore underworld in the mid 80s.

Slick narration, pleasing music, authentic camerawork and credible performances of the cast ensured that the film was lapped up by a largely family audience. However, the film suffered in collections, perhaps due to poor marketing and inadequate publicity. Now, Aa Dinagalu has another feat to its credit, thanks to PVR. Aa Dinagalu is the first Kannada film to be screened by the multiplex major in New Delhi, the national capital. The film was screened for a week beginning March 14 at three PVR cinemas – PVR Narayana, PVR Vikaspuri and PVR MGF.

That is two prints more than other regional films – Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam – which have had decent runs at the Delhi box office. “ Promotion of regional films and preventing piracy has been our primary objective and we have screened several films of other regional languages across our chain of cinemas. As for Kannada films, we were stymied in our efforts when producers demanded steep minimum guarantee amount from us. We wanted to screen Aa Dinagalu in Delhi and when we approached Ravindra, the producer, he was willing to spare us three prints,” said Basavaraj, executive in-charge of South Indian films distribution at the multiplex’s film cell.

And the response? “I must say it has been very encouraging. We are thinking of screening the film in Indore, Hyderabad and Secunderabad as well. We are also in talks with Venkateshwara Films, the distributors in Kolkata.
PVR wants to screen the film across the country. We are keen to promote Kannada films and we will certainly screen more Kannada films outside the State if the producers come forward to give us their films,” Basavaraj signed off.