Pedro maker Natesh Hegde’s Vaghachipani to have its World premiere at the Berlinale Forum

Filmmaker and now actor Anurag Kashyap’s bond with Kannada indie filmmaker Natesh Hegde extends beyond just sharing screen space in Rifle Club and the latter acting in the former’s upcoming directorial along with Raj B Shetty. Anurag, as it turns out, has also taken over the reins of production of Natesh’s sophomore feature film Vaghachipani, which started out as a Rishab Shetty venture, much like his first, Pedro.

In fact, when it was first announced Vaghachipani was said to be a collaborative effort between Rishab Shetty Films and the Busan International Film Festival. Earlier today, Natesh took to social media to announce that Vaghachipani is getting its World premiere at the Berlinale Forum, making it the first-ever Kannada feature film to be selected for the Berlin International Film Festival.

The Berlin International Film Festival kicks off on February 13 and goes on till the 23rd. Vaghachipani is one of 30 films in the Forum section of the festival. Rhea Shukla’s short Finte (Generation), Kush Badhwar and Vyjayanthi Rao’s beneath the placid lake (Forum expanded) and Rima Das’ Village Rockstars 2 are the other films from India at the festival.

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Vaghachipani, aka Tiger’s Pond, has Natesh and his father Gopal Hegde on the cast, along with Malayalam actor-filmmaker Dileesh Pothan, Achyuth Kumar, Nagaraj Hegde, Bindu Raxidi, Sandhya Arekere, Jahangir MS, Sumitra and Gayatri Heggodu. Before he went on floors, Natesh was hopeful of getting Rishab to do a role in the film, but the latter’s busy schedule post-Kantara meant that the filmmaker had to look for other options and that is how Dileesh came onboard.

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Speaking to OTTPlay when the film was still in production, Natesh had said, “Vaghachipani is named after a village in the Western Ghat region, and is based on a script that I wrote inspired from published works by Amaresh Nugadoni. I have put together a bunch of stories to present one coherent narrative.”