13 Nagabharana movies to be screened at fest

As many as 13 Kannada movies by renowned filmmaker T S Nagabharana will be screened as part of a seven-day film festival which was inaugurated by veteran theatre and film personality H G Somashekar Rao at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan here on Sunday.

The films that would be screened will be open for comments during the festival. On September 20, a discussion and movie review session has been organised, in which veteran writer-director Girish Kasaravalli and other prominent personalities from the film industry will participate.

From Nagabharana’s very first movie ‘Grahana’ that won the best feature film award on national integration, to ‘Kamsale Kaisale’, one of his latest movies, a range of his films have been shortlisted for screening. Some of the movies to be screened are: ‘Akasmika’, ‘Janumada Jodi’, ‘Asphota’ and ‘Mysooru Mallige’.

T S Nagabharana, who spoke on the occasion, remarked that there were only two fields where people had a choice of doing what they wanted. “One is films and the other, politics,” he said.
He also said that till date, it had been a challenge for all film makers to meet the social demands along with making a commercial film. “It has been tough and even I have been exploring the possibility of the same,” he said.

Recalling the legal battle that he had to fight over a common name for a recent movie, he said, “One can draw a comparison. I stood for it and urged before the court that film makers be not allowed to name their movie ‘Mysore Mallige’ as I have done one in that name before.”  Bhavan’s Director H N Suresh said that the institute had planned to screen movies of a particular director each year, starting from this year.

Somashekar Rao said that the present day cinema had more ‘organised sound’ that is called ‘music’ than actual ‘sense’ and the current situation could well be regarded ‘tragic’. “We are enmeshed in a web of so many things and it is important for us to come out,” he said.

“Beginning from his very first film ‘Grahana’, Nagabharana has given a new dimension to films altogether. His social and cultural sense, and a skill of portraying objects differently is what makes him stand apart,” he added. S Ramanuja, president, Bhavan Vidya Bhavan, was present.