He reminds you of King Midas because everything he touches turns into gold. But it hasn’t been a smooth sail for this FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) Pune graduate, who hails from a small village in Tirthahalli taluk in Shimoga. Padmashree Girish Kasarvalli needs no introduction. Though he claims to have not known much about cinema back then, he is considered one of the pioneers of the parallel Kannada cinema today. Since he started his journey, there has been no looking back for this legendary director who has 11 National Awards to his credit. He was just 28-years-old when he won his first National award for Ghatashraddha in 1978. His latest film ‘Koormavatara’ was declared as the Best Kannada Feature Film in the National Film Awards (NFA) announced on Wednesday. When we asked him how it felt to have won the award for the umpteenth time, he humbly replied, “In fact, I didn’t realise the award’s importance when I won it for the first time. Over the years, I realised what a National award meant. Winning it over the years since my first award, the effect may not be the same, but it still gives me a lot of excitement.” When asked if he expected the award for Koormavatara, he said “I showed the movie to a couple of my friends who liked it. So I thought that the movie had the potential,” and added with a tone of humbleness, “It feels good when my work gets approved by the enlightened ones.”
When we quizzed the legendary director about the sad state of Kannada mainstream movies today, he said, “There is no experimentation on part of the Kannada film makers today. What Hindi and Tamil films have done today is amazing and everything is transforming with the offbeat stories they are coming up with.” He is also worried about the trend in our film industry where they are copying films instead of making movies reflecting on the Kannada sensibilities. He said, “The Kannada audience is rejecting it because the stories are not rooted and there is absolutely no connection with our literature or the socio-political scenario.” He felt that our film industry should look around and learn from its counterparts such as the Tamil industry for the kind of movies they make, where they constantly try to connect with their audience. There is so much we can learn from our own directors like Putanna Kanagal, who made movies on offbeat subjects. He appreciated the active Kannada theatre movement and feels that there is a lot of good work happening on that end. Kasarvalli is also of the opinion that Kannadigas aren’t that crazy about movie when compared to people in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or for that matter even a smaller state like Kerala. He said, “ Tamil Nadu has about 2500 theatres, Andhra Pradesh has 3,000 theatres and even Kerala has more theatres than us. Karnataka has only around 700 theatres. Morever, we have the choice of watching movies in languages other than Kannada, unlike other states where you are limited with choice.”