Nanda Kishore has a craving for acknowledgement and respect for his work, which he wants to prove with Pogaru. He has taken the project as a challenge and is all out to earn credibility through this film. Ahead of the release, on February 19, the director tells Cinema Express that he was deeply affected when a lot of criticism came his way.
“There was a time when people felt that I am very dependent on others, that I can’t individually handle a project. Questions were raised on my credibility too. I took all this to heart. I was hardworking and felt that I was always a part of the team, but my work did not do the talking,” he said.
With Pogaru, he wants to shout out that “this is ‘whole and sole’ Nanda Kishore’s project”. The filmmaker points out that he thinks it is time he got due respect for his efforts, and that his name appears next to directors like Yogaraj Bhat, Suri, and Prashanth Neel. Talking about his last film, Brihaspathi, which did not make much noise, he says, “People made fun and said that I am only good at coming up with remakes. Even though my first directorial, Victory, was an original film, nobody points at it today. But even then, giving a hit with a remake is also not an easy thing. I am here to prove that I can do both the things. However, I can vouch that every scene in Pogaru will be seen fr the first time on screen.”
According to Nanda Kishore, Pogaru defines the term ‘mass flick’ that resonates with people. Explaining about role he has sketched for Dhruva in the film, Nanda Kishore says, “The lead character is notorious and we have used words like Karaabu, which is regularly not heard from a hero. Pogaru is an attitude, which comes when you know the skills and are confident about something. That is what I have tried to bring out through Dhruva’s character,” he says.
Besides the commercial elements, viewers will also get to see an emotional mother-son relationship, which is the focal point of the story, Nanda Kishore reveals, citing the example of the blockbuster film, Jogi.
“Before Jogi hit screens, people thought it was based on a subject about rowdies, but the whole perspective changed later, and people walked out of theatres with a lot of emotions. A mass film can bring in the emotional quotient as well. That’s the feeling one can get with Pogaru also,” he says.
Ask him about the toughest part of making Pogaru, and he talks about getting the character sketch of Action Prince Dhruva Sarja right. “I had to keep the emotions like anger and carelessness intact. My first step was to change the look of Dhruva. He is lean, and had to look rugged with a bulk body,” the director reveals.
The ‘appaji’ relationship that he shares with Dhruva Sarja came naturally, Nanda Kishore says. “All the stars are like kids who need a lot of attention, pampering, and convincing. I see him as a kid, and he calls me Appaji,” adds the director, who expresses his gratitude to the actor and producer BK Gangadhar for offering him this project when he was at the lowest phase of his life.
Speaking about the importance of Pogaru, which is also getting released in Tamil and Telugu, he says, “Today, we are no more classified as a Kannada, Tamil, Telugu or a Malayalam director, as languages have crossed barriers. It is all about showcasing our work in other regions.”
Pogaru, which also stars
Rashmika Mandanna as the female lead, along with Dhananjay, Mayuri, Sampath, Chikkanna, and Kuri Pratap, among others, took a long time to get made, and Nanda Kishore wants to assure the audience that it would be worth the wait.
“People have often talked about the project being delayed, and some loose talk like that did hurt us. We never knew that the pandemic would put the world under halt for almost a year, nor could we predict the tragedy in Dhruva’s family. We can’t go against nature, but we can point out to people that having kept the project in our hands for almost three and a half years, we have still kept it trending. That is what I call ‘luck’,” he adds.