Case of Kondana is not a regular cop story like Marichi or Seetharam Benoy, says director Devi Prasad Shetty

When Devi Prasad Shetty set out to make his first feature film, Seetharam Benoy: Case No 18, he was riddled with constraints of budget and time, but he’s not one to shift blame of the film’s lacklustre performance on these factors. “Every film will have some issue or the other. If it is budget once, it will be something else the next time. As a filmmaker, it is my responsibility to rise above that and do my best and that is what I have tried with Case of Kondana, which is currently in theatres. The film has Vijay Raghavendra and Bhavana Menon in pivotal roles.

Case of Kondana movie review - A gripping thriller led brilliantly by Vijay Raghavendra and Bhavana Menon 

Interestingly, Case of Kondana was not the project that Devi Prasad wanted as his sophomore film. “I wanted to branch into a different genre and had begun working on a script as well. But along the way, the team and I figured that the budget would be too much and since we are also the producers, we decided to put that film on the backburner for the moment.”

Instead, Devi Prasad and team thought that doing another crime thriller would be apt, so, in 2022 they began script work on Case of Kondana. “We knew that when news breaks of the Seetharam Benoy team collaborating on another investigative thriller, people would think the new film would also follow the same pattern. We had to break that and ensure that our next is nothing like Seetharam Benoy,” explains the filmmaker.

The only similarity between Case of Kondana and Seetharam Benoy would be that Vijay is a cop. “Case of Kondana has a hyperlinked narrative pattern. It is not only a crime thriller, but also has an emotional factor between a father and daughter. There are 4 story arcs that culminate into one cohesive plot,” says Devi Prasad.

Bhavana Menon used THIS Bollywood actress as reference for Case of Kondana role 

The filmmaker adds that people will realize that there is a different attempt to tell a cop story once they see the film. “I did not reveal this in the trailer and as such it may seem that it is a routine investigative story. When you watch the trailer, you will think it is about a cop chasing a killer, and while that is true, the twist is in who the killer that the cops are hunting is,” adds the director.