Even as the Sandalwood folk and fans prepare for the release of the official poster of upcoming film Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare on Jan. 28, this youthful film seems to have already sparked interest with just its title and tag line – ‘Worst movie ever made in the history of cinema’. While the poster will be launched by Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar, the film’s promo has been grabbing eyeballs.
We’ll tell you why. Following an artistic approach by debutant director Nithin Krishnamurthy, the team has made use of paintings created by Raja Ravi Varma to do the talking. It begins with “Re Vishalu, eneri adige nimmanaeli? (Vishalu, what’s cooking for lunch today?) with the highlight being ‘Re Mona’, (referring to Monalisa’s painting). The young team has played on the age-old concept of ‘Neighbourhood talk’ ( read small talk). This gives a hint of the film’s genre.
Nithin says that the team was influenced by European memes, which was the trigger of the idea. “Since ours is a Kannada film, we wanted to keep it local. So we chose paintings which are over 60 years old and those which did not have copyright issues.
We had a few middle-aged women who dubbed their voices for the promo,” says Nithin about the promo that was released a couple of days ago and has been receiving a lot of appreciation on social media, and also had words of praise from actor-director Rakshit Shetty and Rishab Shetty. “We were hesitant whether using these artistic paintings will offend anybody.
Thankfully we are getting only positive response,” he says. The film, made under Gulmohar films in association with Varrun Studios, has Arvind Kashyap and Ajaneesh Lokanth handling cinematography and music, respectively. Nithin says that Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare is a pop culture comedy-drama, and the entire film takes place in one night at a hostel. This is a realistic film with no filters, and is shot in a cinema verite style, a first attempt in Kannada cinema, he tells us.
About 30 fresh faces will be introduced in the film, for which Nithin auditioned at least 7,000 artistes. “We were keen to have fresh actors. The audition was a long process. Finally, we got on board the 30 best,” says Nithin, adding, “We have two female leads who will be seen in pivotal roles.” Nithin has previously worked in a private entertainment channel, where he was in charge of promos and ads. Having worked as an assistant director in Pawan Kumar’s Lucia, Hostel Hudugaru will mark his directorial debut.