BENGALURU: A biopic on the legendary farmer activist from Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha prof MD Nanjundaswamy (MDN) will be ready in a year or so with noted actor Dhananjaya showing interest to take up the lead role and also be the producer.
Actor-politician Ramya has been shortlisted to play Pratima Nanjundaswamy, according to MDN’s son, Pacche. “Dhananjaya spoke to me three months ago, and we have been developing a storyline,” he told TNIE. Looking at the socio-political landscape through the prism of MDN, it is also likely to show his relationship with former chief minister Siddaramaiah.
MDN returned to India after obtaining a degree in law from the Hague Academy of International Law, in the Netherlands. In Germany and France, he was exposed to constitutional laws. He taught law at Bengaluru and Mysuru universities in 1964 and was one of the founders of KRRS in 1980. In 1989, he was elected as an independent MLA.
The scholarly leader was staunchly against globalisation and had even led hundreds of farmers into a protest outside Switzerland’s Swiss bank and other mammoth MNCs as their policies were allegedly anti-farmer. His biopic will showcase all these facets of his life.
“I have about 300 hours of footage on him, of which 80 could be converted into scenes in the film. The movie would be released in five languages -- Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi -- and would be dubbed in English,’’ Pacche told TNIE, adding that he hopes that the movie is at par with ‘Yatra’ on former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajashekar Reddy and Richard Attenborough’s ‘Gandhi’.