Low on budget, high on art

As change sweeps the industry, Girish Kasaravalli goes on with his own kind of meaningful cinema

The tag for the kind of movies he makes has changed several times since he came into filmmaking. Parallel cinema, offbeat films, alternative cinema, arthouse films — but Bangalore-based Girish Kasaravalli, 61, has stayed true to the style, substance and themes of his kind of moviemaking.

Kasaravalli had a dream debut with Ghatashraddha (The Ritual) in 1977. It was a poignant film about two entwined lives in a cloistered Brahmin community: a small boy who has difficulty in cramming the religious hymns and a young widow who gets pregnant. The film won the Best Film honour at the National Film Awards that year.

Since then, Kasaravalli has pulled it off with remarkable regularity. His work has won Best Film awards in every decade, four so far. It was Tabarana Kathe (Tabara's story) in 1986, Thaayi Saheba in 1997 and Dweepa (The Island) in 2001. Six of his films have won Best Kannada Feature at the National Film Awards, the latest last week for Kurmavatara.

Such a rousing track-record suggests that Kasaravalli has buyers, foreign film festival curators and distributors beating a path to his door — but the reality is far from that. In his beautiful five-level home on a crowded street in south Bangalore, unperturbed by the incessant din from the traffic outside, the director makes a passionate analysis — makers of serious films face daunting times in a country consumed by Bollywood.

Kasaravalli's moviemaking is quite distinctive. His last four films have been backed by a single producer. At a screening of one of his recent films, Gulabi Talkies, the director candidly confessed that he makes films on a no-frills budget. Gulabi Talkies cost less than Rs 35 lakh, about the same as his other films. His producers do not lose money on the films he makes but they don't make great money either.

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