Pedro makers Rishab Shetty and Natesh Hegde get National Award-winning filmmaker Dileesh Pothan on board their next

The director-actor will be seen in Natesh’s Vaghachipani (Tiger’s Pond), which is co-produced by Rishab Shetty and the Busan International Film Festival

Natesh has got the Malayalam director-actor on board the film produced by Rishab Shetty

Young filmmaker Natesh Hegde’s much-feted directorial debut Pedro is still not done with its successful film festival run, and yet to be brought to the public domain with a theatrical release. But he’s already begun work on his next, Vaghachipani, which is being backed yet again by filmmaker-actor Rishab Shetty, who produced Pedro as well.

This one will also be in Natesh’s typical style, shot in locations near his home town, with people he’s known and grown up with. His father, Gopal Hegde, who played the lead in Pedro, will be a part Vaghachipani. Speaking to OTTplay earlier, Natesh had said that he was getting ambitious as far as his cast goes and was hoping to get producer Rishab to play a character. This, of course, was well before Kantara released and now, there’s no way Natesh can pin his producer down. Rishab has already excused himself from all his other acting commitments to focus solely on his next directly, which is reported to be a prequel to Kantara.

Also read: Stories rooted in a culture get a global audience if they're about a human condition: Pedro-maker Natesh Hegde

Natesh may not have got Rishab to play a role in his film, but he has, most definitely struck gold as far as casting goes. Earlier today, Natesh announced that he’s got National Award winning filmmaker Dileesh Pothan on board for Vaghachipani. Malayalam director and actor Dileesh is best known for his award-winning films Maheshinte Prathikaram, Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum and Joji and is a well accomplished actor as well. Our best bet is that Dileesh gets the role that Natesh had earmarked for Rishab.

Raj B Shetty, who was in Pedro as well, will be in the film, as will Gopalkrishna Deshpande. “The film, which is named after a village called Vaghachipani in the Western Ghat region, is based on a script that I wrote, which, in turn, has been inspired from published works by Amaresh Nugadoni. I have put together a bunch of stories to present one coherent narrative,” Natesh had told us earlier.

Share