Making Arishadvarga was an organic process, says director Arvind Kamath, as he talks about his upcoming release, which is set to hit theatres on Nov. 27. “The film is about real people stuck in a situation of a murder, and how their interpersonal relationship works through the investigation gets unfolded in the story. Arishadvarga is nothing but six desires of the human mind,” reveals the director.
The story is inspired from the various happenings that he has observed around him, which he turned to fiction. “This is essentially a human drama packaged as a murder mystery to make it more interesting for the audience,” he adds. It is not every person’s dream to become a filmmaker, but Arvind Kamath always wanted to get into the art of filmmaking, but took up engineering, and worked in the IT sector for 8-9 years. The forayed into cinema in 2010 and there has been no looking back for him since then.
“I made an independent film, Innuendo, which went to a few film festivals. Then I started working in an ad agency and as a consultant for film festivals. I was simultaneously working on Arishadvarga,” he says. Arvind Kamath, who started work on the film in a regular manner in 2017, is still in the hangover stage, and hopes it will fade after the release. “This project saw an investment by people who trusted me and gave me the freedom, and I did not rush it,” he says. He took a year for the post-production process.
“The movie was ready in 2019, and we took it to various festivals. Just when we were planning to release it in early 2020, the pandemic happened. That caused the delay,” he adds. Arishadvarga starring Samyukta Hornad, Avinahs, Nanda Gopal, and Mahesh Bung among others has done the rounds of festivals in London, Singapore and Vancouver.
Talking about how important it was for him, the director says, “Since it has a mainstream subject, we never worked at sending it to any festival, but it all happened. In my opinion, films going to festivals is like having a focused screening. This helps you interact with the audience and get their first reactions, and know whether we meet their expectations. It also gives a platform for the film’s publicity and visibility,” he says.
Arishadvarga will be the next new film to get released, after Mansore’s ACT-1978, and the makers want to screen it only in around 50 theatres and have about 70 shows across Karnataka. “I am keeping my fingers crossed. We are taking a leap of faith by releasing it around this time,” says the director, adding, “Going forward, when hundreds of theatres open up, the number of releases will also be high, and supply will become more than the demand. So it will be a risk later too, and we decided to do it now.”