Based on a true story

CITY LIGHTS

Actor Santhosh is all set to star in a movie directed by Panaga Bharana. While the movie name is yet to be released, the actor is excited to talk about the movie.

 He says, “Nearly ten years after his father gave me a role in ‘Kallarali Hoovagi’, my first movie, I will be working with Panaga. This is the first time that I am working with him, and we have a certain comfort level with each other because we are both movie-savvy.”

He hopes that after appearing on TV shows like ‘Bigg Boss Kannada’, his popularity has spread to various parts of Karnataka and this movie will be a success.   Talking about the movie, the ‘Nooru Janmaku’ actor says, “It is an action romance. It’s about a middle-class guy who shifts from a village to the city in search of an address but doesn’t have time to breath when he gets there. There are two other characters, Meenakshi and Kareem bhai, his godfather, who are very important in his life. In a life that is full of happiness and love, something changes when he moves into a mean world.”

The movie will be shot in Mysuru and Mandya.  “This is a challenging script as I will have to portray a person whose life is very different from my own, whether it’s the way he dresses or moves. This film caters to a small child, a dreamer, a middle-class person...it is the epitome of love. And Panaga plans to direct it with subtlety; there is no physical love, only the bonding of minds, of a boy from a village who settles down in a city and a girl who is a chatterbox from a ‘vatara’.”

How did he come across  the script? “It is based on the real-life story of a boy I met on a train. I narrated his story to Panaga over dinner and we scripted it out over a year-and-a-half. It was initially meant to be in Tamil but we realised it would do better for a Kannada audience,” he says. While the movie is still in the pre-production stage, the shooting will begin in mid-February.

On the music, he says, “We plan to have five independent music bands record for us, including ‘Swarathma’. This will be one of those times when so many independent artistes come together for a commercial film.” Wrapping up, Santhosh says that people should watch this movie for its content, the Panaga and Santhosh combination, the technical aspect and the promos which will be released soon.