23 September,2009 09:16 AM IST | | Manju Shettar
Protest threats die down as Kannada movie featuring director B P Srinivas and his daughter Shalini does not feature any 'improper' scenes Mussanjeya Gelathi has nothing to do with incest, the duo maintain
The director-actor and his daughter who feared protests when they appeared as a romantic pair are relieved nothing untoward happened, and are planning more movies together.
Shalini, who acted opposite her father in Mussanjeya Gelathi (Twilight Friend), told MiD DAY, "We failed to give proper publicity for the movie, so it didn't do as well as we had expected."
The movie ran for three weeks and received lukewarm reviews. MiD DAY tried calling director-actor B P Srinivas to ask how he had handled the protests, but his phone remained switched off through all of last week.
The protesters had feared the film would feature "improper" scenes between Srinivas and his daughter, but once the movie was released, the outrage died down.
The film did not have any intimate scenes between the romantic pair. Srinivas played the role of a professor drawn to his student, but the love doesn't go any further.
"Most people agreed the script was good, and I am very happy with my performance," the heroine said.
Shalini was also happy no one had criticised her either for acting opposite her father or for ruining her role. "In fact, friends and neighbours appreciated my debut," she said.
Some people wrote to Srinivas from Chikmagalur and some North Karnataka towns, asking him to release the movie there.
u00a0"I am playing lead roles in three other movies under our own banner," she said.
Many newspapers had criticised Shalini for acting as the heroine opposite her father, but that was before the release of the film. Shalini said many tabloids had gone to town painting her and her father as evil.
But the reviews weren't so negative. "The papers spoke about the movie's positive aspects," she said.
