Twin cities beckon filmmakers

Twin cities beckon filmmakers
Newindpress.com

Wednesday February 8 2006

HUBLI: The twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad, are slowly becoming safe and attractive, for shooting Kannada movies.

Earlier, only a few low-budget film producers shot their movies in some areas of Hubli-Dharwad very rarely, that too out of love for North Karnataka.

Though many well-known theatre artistes like Janapeeta awardee Girish Karnad, Suresh Heblikar etc, had their roots in the region, particularly in Hubli-Dharwad, many producers preferred to stay away from the twin cities.

Only a few film personalities including renowned Kannada film director, Puttana Kanagal, ventured into shooting a few scenes of his movie ‘Dharani Mandal Mandalmadhydolage’ during 1982-83 in Dharwad, Lokesh and Srinath starrer ‘Pattanakke Banda Patniyaru, some sequences of ‘Minchina Vota’ starring Ananthnag and Shankarnag, etc., were shot in Hubli-Dharwad.

For many years, producers came to Hubli-Dharwad for shooting art flicks. However, the trend of tapping available potential of the twin cities particularly Hubli, for commercial films kicked off after the shooting of a popular song ‘Huttidare Kannadanadalli Huttabeku’ of ‘Akasmika’ film, starring Dr Rajkumar, in Hubli, a decade ago.

‘Akasmika’, a big hit, started drawing the attention of film producers of who had confined themselves to Bangalore and other metros.

Subsequently, actor-turned-politician, B C Patil camped in Hubli-Dharwad for a week to shoot his movie ‘Surya IPS’. Inspired by its success, he also shot another movie ‘Hattur Odeya’ in Hubli and Dharwad.

Following the same, film producers, fed up with traffic chaos, uncontrolled mob and other practical problems in Bangalore, started eyeing the twin cities.

In the last few years, films of most popular heros, including hat-trick hero Shivarajkumar’s 75th film ‘Sriram’, Ambrish-starrer ‘Annavaru’, Darshan starrer ‘Ayya’, and others, were shot in important locales of Hubli.

Punith starrer ‘Ajaya’, under the Rockline production banner, is being shot in Hubli and Dharwad.

Producers are not only using Hubli-Dharwad for shooting, many have already made use of Hubli as a launching pad for release of audio cassettes of their films.

It was film star Sudeep who first started the trend of releasing audio cassettes from Hubli instead of Bangalore, by releasing his first production film, ‘Swati Muttu’.

Inspired by the same, audio cassettes of ‘Kutumba’ with Upendra in the lead role, were released from Hubli. Recently, Kannada blockbuster ‘Jogi’’s audio cassettes were released in a grand function in Hubli.

Going a step ahead, a producer has named his new movie ‘Hubballi’, in which Sudeep is playing a lead role.

Not surprisingly, most of the movies being shot in Hubli-Dharwad, have become hits at the box-office.