Director Pannaga Bharana wound up the shoot of his untitled comedy flick starring Danish Sait. Now in its post-production stage, the film narrates a three-day journey of a French expatriate and an auto driver from Shivajinagar.
He announced the film on Puneeth Rajkumar’s birthday last month and is planning for a release in August. Pannaga says, “The film started its shoot in January, and the schedule was around 40 days.”
The director also says that it was interesting to shoot in and around Shivajinagar.
The film is based on an experience that Pannaga had when travelling to Chennai. “I wanted to travel in the Olivea Travels (a premium bus service from Bengaluru to
Chennai) and was excited. After the ride was done and I reached Chennai, I wanted to take a taxi, but was surrounded by auto drivers at the stop. The autorickshaws don’t have a meter there and the driver of the auto I chose, said I would have to pay the amount he fixed. I agreed to go ahead with the ride,” he details.
Pannaga didn’t know that this ride was going to be an interesting experience. He says, “The driver took a different route and took me through small gullies. He was talking about the contrasts of the city -- the buildings in the developed areas and the slums around. After I came back to Bengaluru, I was talking about this ride to a friend, and she told me it was worth turning into a film. This was eight years ago.”
Compared to ‘Happy New Year’, Pannaga vouches that this project will be a laughter riot.
He says, “We have started editing the film and are really enjoying it. I am sure the audience will also enjoy the film. Comedy is very challenging. There were times when I got back home after the day’s shoot and used to wonder if a particular scene would work.”
The film will see Danish Sait playing the role of the auto driver. “Prajwal (Devaraj) always used to tell me about how funny Danish is, and I was looking forward to meet him. I met Danish at a friend’s wedding and was discussing the film and it all fell in place. Sal Yusuf is playing the French expatriate,” says Pannaga.
The film is written by Avinash Balekkala and the producer is Ashwini Puneeth Rajkumar.
The director and his team are looking for a quirky title for the film. “We are looking into a ‘Kanglish’ (Kannada plus English) name. We are brainstorming on it -- we have some really good ones and some really silly suggestions too on the table,” he adds.