A pawsome story

The Kannada film industry is on a new wave with experimental cinema in the spotlight. Artistes and directors are crossing over genres and more realistic subjects are being explored.
In line with this, is the upcoming movie, ‘Charlie 777’, which is based on the relationship of a man and an animal.

Inspired by a true-life incident, Kiranraj K, the director of the movie says that his vision was to explore a subject unexplored.

Kiranraj who has also written the story and screenplay believes that the movie will trigger many conversations and get noticed for its content.

“The movie revolves around a man who works in a vehicle manufacturing factory. He doesn’t talk to anyone and none of his co-workers know anything about his personality,” narrates Kiranraj.

Charlie, a Labrador, comes into his life and changes everything.

“This dog comes into the quarters that the employees of the family resides in and gets connected to the hero. How they bond forms the storyline of the project,” he explains.

The transformation of the hero is huge. From being an introvert, he becomes more social. “The hero’s life goes through a whirlwind of a change, where the hyperactive Charlie influences him deeply,” he says.

Ask Kiranraj about the title of the movie and he says, “The number 777 is the dog’s licence number. I kept the name as it is bound to trigger interest in the audience.”

While it is easy to mould an actor according to his role, training an animal can be quite a task, especially when acting in a movie. “We were looking for a dog frantically as we wanted to do a photoshoot and kickstart the whole process. After a lot of search, a friend of mine, who had just brought a dog home, asked us if we were interested in checking the pet out for the role. This is how we found our Charlie!” says Kiranraj. 

The Labrador is currently undergoing training under Mac, a British trainer, in Ooty. “Mac runs a kennel there and he knows how to handle dogs really well.

Charlie is being trained on how to respond to different situations and we have involved actor Aravinnd Iyer in the training too as the bond between the actor and the dog has to look as natural as possible,” he details.  So, what will happen to Charlie after the movie is complete? “I’ve adopted him now. he will remain a part of my life for ever!” he quips in. The producers of the movie are Rakshit Shetty and G S Gupta. “I have worked in movies like ‘Kirik Party’ and ‘Ricky’ as an associate director and I take my experiences from these movies to steer ahead my own project,” he says.

What are the challenges that Kiranraj is forecasting? Kiranraj has been working on this story for the last one year and knows that there are many issues involved when an animal is involved.

“My team and I know that the most interesting and challenging parts will be where Charlie will be involved. One can schedule shoot from 6 am to 6 pm for artistes, but a dog is at his energetic best usually a couple of few hours in a day. The project will take longer to complete. But this is my dream come true. I have my fingers crossed,” he sums up.