Sagar Puranik has a penchant for making award-winning films. His first short film, Mahaan Hutatma, not only fetched him a National Award but was enjoyed by common audiences too. His debut feature film, Dollu, too won big at the recently announced National Awards in the Best Kannada Film and Best Audiography under the Location Sound Recordist category.
Backed by Wadeyar Films (Apeksha Purohit and Pavan Wadeyar), the National award-winning film is set to release on August 26.
Talking about doing films, not just for festivals and awards, Sagar says, “Though my short film had won a lot of awards, the intention was never to do another film purely meant for festivals or awards. The intention was to do something meaningful for me to look back at and not have any regrets. I wanted my debut to be meaningful for me.
Secondly, I think my sensibilities and my narrative style are very universal. The acting involved, the writing, the frames, the pacing, etc, probably resonate well with juries and film critics, and Dollu ticked all the checklists that are required to fetch a national award.
Similarly, I hope viewers and the common audience would enjoy Dollu just like how film critics, juries, and film lovers have enjoyed it.”
Delving into the reason behind choosing the theme of Dollu folk artists, Sagar says, "The exact moment I knew I wanted to do a film on Dollu is when I was at an event and the performers started beating the drums. I was so spellbound! That was the minute I visualised that if placed in a good fictional story, this theme would make for a very good film."
"That’s exactly what we did with Dollu. I have added more layers to the film with urbanisation and ideological clashes as one of the main themes,” he added.
Dollu has Sagar Puranik collaborating with director Pavan Wadeyar, who turned producer for the first time with this film. The film stars Karthik Mahesh, Nidhi Hegde, Babu Hirannaiah, and Chandra Mayur.
“Pavan sir had seen my short film and had thoroughly liked it. This was a major factor for him to give me this opportunity. My respect and gratitude for him increased ten-fold when he offered me the opportunity to direct his first-ever production venture. He gave me the utmost freedom to make this film and supported me by giving this film whatever it needed,” he says.