03 July,2009 08:45 AM IST | | Manju Shettar
Kannada stars must learn to respect female directors, says Priyabharati whose film has been delayed due to her lead actor's tantrums
A filmmaker has flown down from the US to Bengaluru just to escort her "reluctant" lead actor to the shoot.
Priyabharati, whose e-Preeti has taken close to a year in the making, says she is "deeply disappointed with Diganth Manchale", whom she had signed for the film.
"He is playing around with the dates. I've had to cancel his air tickets to the US, where an important part of the film has to be shot.u00a0 But this time I am determined to take him along," she declares.
The filmmaker says she had to appeal to the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce about the actorplaying hard to get. "Following my appeal tou00a0 KFCC, he turned up for the shoot in Washington for two weeks in February 2009, but after that he has been playing truant. He had told me that he would fly to the US on July 14. I don't want to take any chances, so I am here. I will fly back with him," she says.
Diganth was not available for comment, and his phone remained switched off.
"The Kannada film industry scares me. It is so rule-bound that it kills the creativity," says Priyabharati.
"Moreover, most actors over here do not respect female directors. They come to films from the modelling circuitu00a0 and they don't know a thing about dialogue delivery or body language. They don't practise with the script either," sheu00a0u00a0 complains. So what's her solution? "Sign on theatre artistes. They are talented, they have the right idea about screenplay and they are co-operative," she retorts.
What's the plot?
A romantic comedy that addresses inter-cultural issues among children of mixed marriages, e-Preetiu00a0 has Diganth playing the role of Vishal and Tejaswini Prakash playing Preeti.
Singin' in the snow
The film has song sequences shot in the snow. While most filmmakers make do with artificial snow, Priyabharati was keen on having the real thing and decided to shoot in Washington DC.u00a0
"Once we had to go to an urban location with snowfall in the background, but that very day it started snowing so heavily that all the roads were blocked. So we had to shoot behind my house and the scene came out perfectly,"u00a0u00a0 says the enthusiastic filmmaker.
The film also has a salsa number and the Italian a-capella.
Who is Priyabharati?
A theatre artiste, she directed Ganesh's debut film Guttu. The film never saw light of day in Karnataka but was released in Washington DC, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Los Angeles. She also dubbed the movie in Hindi and released it in the US. She has worked as cinematographer, editor and choreographer. Born in Bangalore, she moved to Canada in 1988 with her parents, and the family later relocated to Washington.
