Coming up on the OTT platform will be a black and white film, also titled Black and White. A bilingual made in Kannada and Tamil, this is an attempt by actor Kishore Kumar G, popularly known as Kishore. The film will also be dubbed in Telugu. The versatile hero, who is also a farmer, will wear a couple of more hats for Black and White. The Jatta, Ulidavaru Kanadanthe and Attahaasa actor, who is also known for his roles in Tamil films like Haridas, Aadukalam, and playing the antagonist in Kabali, Puli Murugan, Thoonagvanam, and Aarambham, has taken the directorial responsibilities of the film along with a newcomer.
This apart, he has jointly produced the film under the Visthaara banner and Anupama Kumar’s production house, Looking Glass. The psychological thriller will also have the latter playing the female lead. Having made her debut in Vishal Bharadwaj’s 2010 black comedy, Ishqiya, she followed it with pivotal roles in Bejoy Nambiar’s David, Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Neethana En Ponvasntham, AR Murugadoss’s Thupakki, among others. She was also a part of the latest venture Dharala Prabhu.
Black and White has a limited cast, and stars Roger Narayan, Srikrishna Dayal and Surekha will also be seen in prominent roles. Kishore, who is managing multiple roles for the project, is currently busy with the editing work. The technical crew has Keerthan composing the music while Tapas Nayak is doing the sound, and cinematography is by Nagesh Acharya. Meanwhile, the production house is in talks with various OTT platforms to release the film.
According to the actor-director, the thriller attempts to explore the black and white elements of human nature, and the fine line between sanity and insanity. “The narrative is mainly between husband and wife. Black and White will dwell on the duality of the human psyche, the co-existence of the yin and the yang, the male and the female, the good and the bad, the black and the white... a reality that becomes the texture of our film.
It explores how human expressions are manipulated through a lot of other means which represent the society we live in, and more or less the present isolation the world is facing during COVID-19 lockdown. It’s all captured in black and white. The film has been shot on Red Dragon camera, and filmed in one location,” he says.
An experimental film, Black and White is set in 1984. The team wants to tribute this film to the traditions of Hitchcock and Kubrick and is heavily inspired by what Georre Orwell predicted long ago in his novel, which first introduced the term ‘Big Brother’. The 2-hour film is heavily influenced by the thought of a dystopian society, and the team did a lot of research on it. “Making a black and white film meant the team had to burn the midnight oil and research every aspect, including the camera, lens, and lights most suited for this kind of adventure, as well as the colour of the set, costumes, and makeup. We had to make a few changes, but we finally got there,” says Anupama.
The team wants to dedicate this film to the traditions of Hitchcock and Kubrick. “Being diehard fans of Hitchcock and Kubrick, we often wonder why we didn’t think of it before,” says Anupama, adding, “When Kishore and I initially heard the story of Black and White, we just knew that this was a film we had to make. However, the self-financed movie came with its own set of challenges, as expected. We were lucky to meet and collaborate with some like-minded talented people, who came on board as co-producers and made this happen.”