Happy Birthday To Me is a comedy about a party and a dead body

Filmmaker Rakesh Kadri is not a complete novice, as far as filmmaking goes. He’s assisted on multiple projects, including Kirik Party and co-directed the Tulu film Girgit with Bigg Boss Kannada Season 9 winner Roopesh Shetty. With Happy Birthday To Me, Rakesh is set to go solo. Produced by Shoolin Films, who’ve backed Tulu blockbusters like Girgit, Circus and Gamjaal, Happy Birthday To Me is a comedy starring Siddhaartha Maadhyamika and Siddu Moolimani in the lead and revolves around a birthday party gone wrong.

“Siddhaartha and Siddu are flat mates and decide to celebrate the former’s birthday. But then things go awry when a female guest ends up dead and they have to figure out a way to smuggle the body out of the apartment, even as a whole bunch of characters come visiting. As far as concept goes, this may not seem new, but here the treatment is different. Everything happens in the apartment and during one day. It’s a quirky comedy revolving around whether they manage to get the body out or not,” explains Rakesh.

The film, which was started during lockdown, also stars Chaithra J Achar, Archana Kottige, Natya Ranga, Gopalkrishna Deshpande and Rachana Rai. “Long time ago, I had seen this Alfred Hitchcock movie called Rope, which also revolved around a body in a house, and I had an idea based off it. I wanted to tell a story about a dead body in one place and that’s how it struck me to set it as a tale of a birthday boy calling a girl home and then she ends up dead. What happens next? That was the plot and I started writing it in 2020, a time during which OTT was booming. The plan was to make the film on a limited budget and push it to OTT,” says the filmmaker, who began shooting in 2022.

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Although mainstream streaming platforms are not taking Kannada films without a theatrical release, Rakesh is hopeful of taking Happy Birthday To Me to a few streamers under a non-exclusive deal. A direct-to-OTT release will also mean that the film does not have to be censored. “Happy Birthday To Me is a niche film, a dark comedy that is not necessarily a family watch. It is not vulgar, but more to do with the spoken language in the film, which is more casual, as well as some sequences of recreational drug use. If a Prime Video release works out and they require censor certification of U/A, then, I may look at cutting or muting as per the suggestions,” he says.

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If Rakesh abides by the censor mandates, will it hamper the viewing experience? “I don’t think it will be a major issue, because there are only 2-3 scenes that need modification. Right now, the way the conversations flow is nice, and if I mute some words, it will be odd, no doubt. If there’s no way around it, I will go ahead and make the changes, because the end goal is to get the film to audiences,” he says.

By the end of the week, Rakesh is hoping to finalize deals to put his film on a few platforms and is aiming for an end of June release.