Exclusive! Dollu will continue its festival run, but will release in theatres in May: Pavan Wadeyar and Sagar Puranik

Pavan Wadeyar is quite an accomplished filmmaker himself, yet by his own admission, he is envious of those who make meaningful parallel cinema. “I love the making style of, say, someone like Girish Kasaravalli sir, but try as I might, I can’t make films like that. I am too much of a commercial filmmaker. But I have always wanted to be associated with parallel cinema, so when I set out to launch my own banner, along with my wife, Apeksha, the plan was to back such films and give them a wider platform. Around the time that I was looking at launching my production house, Wadeeyar Films, I had seen the National Award-winning short film, Mahaan Hutatma, directed by Sagar Puranik. I was quite fascinated by it and reached out to its director, Sagar Puranik, sometime in 2020. I told him that I would be interested to produce a movie for him if he had any interesting subject about the culture of the state or the language, Kannada. That’s when he told me about Dollu, a story about a folk art from Karnataka. We started with intention of making a good movie, and never imagined it would be recognized the way it has been today. Since its first outing at the Bangladesh Film Festival, Dollu has travelled across the globe and won several accolades, including Best Indian film and technical excellence at the Boston fest, and more recently, Best Regional Film and Best Director in Rajasthan,” says Pavan about his maiden production.

Director Sagar, meanwhile, fills us in on Dollu, and why he decided to make a film on this art form. “Primarily, I love performing arts in general. Dollu Kunitha is one art that is visually so vibrant and the sound hits your ear drums really hard. I had not seen any other art form like this, including the tiger-like costumes, anklets, head gear and the heavy drums around their waist. To then dance in a synchronized manner is quite awesome. When I decided to make a feature film, I knew it had to have a subject that comes from the heart. I was at an event that had a live Dollu Kunitha performance and I marvelled at how engrossing it was seeing it on a stage. But it got me wondering how much more it could be on a big screen with proper colouring and 5.1 surround sound. That’s when I thought that I should do a film about Dollu Kunitha and, as luck would have it, while I was developing the story with my writer Srinidhi DS, Pavan sir came along with the idea to collaborate,” he elaborates.

The most difficult, yet beautiful part of making Dollu, adds Sagar, is that they had a mix of professional actors and Dollu Kunitha performers to be a part of the film. “We got the actors to train in Dollu Kunitha for a while, while we also got on board national-level performers, with a touch of drama in them. We rehearsed for camera, so the performers got acting lessons, while the actors got Dollu Kunitha training. Even veteran choreographer Chandra Mayur took time to learn the folk-dance form,” he says.

But is Dollu a documentary or fictional tale? “This is a fictional story about how urbanization affects a local Dollu Kunitha team and how the group then falls apart. This in turn has other repercussions, when a yearly tradition is stopped because the group has disbanded. What the protagonist sets out to continue the tradition is what Dollu is about,” explains Sagar.

Dollu is currently still on the festival circuit, having recently had a screening at the International Film Festival of Thrissur, and both Pavan and Sagar are looking at taking it to many more. Pavan, though, is also keen on bringing the film to regular audiences too, by giving it a theatrical release. “We are looking at releasing Dollu in theatres sometime in May,” he says, about the film that stars Karthik Mahesh, Nidhi Hegde, Babu Hiranaya, Chandra Mayur, Sharanya Suresh and Dr Prabhu Deva, among others.