Recent Kannada hits show that even out-of-the-box films will be appreciated: Nithin Krishnamurthy

Bengaluru, Oct 18: Director Nithin Krishnamurthy says he is aware that a genre-defying film like “Hostel Hudugaru Bekagiddare”, would have been impossible if not for the “beautiful high” that the Kannada film industry is going through.
“I think of late, at least for people like me, it’s a good time to be doing Kannada films. The recent success of films like ‘Daredevil Mustafa’ and ‘Aachar & Co’ has put confidence in every new filmmaker that we can do out-of-the-box content and it will be appreciated,” says Krishnamurthy, an engineering graduate-turned filmmaker, who made his debut with the film.
Krishnamurthy is reluctant to slot his film. He says it can be called “found footage comedy”. “I suppose it can be called that because 90% of it was shot with handheld cameras.” Like most found footage horror genre films, in “Hostel Hudugaru…” too, events unfold in the span of a night, he says.
But when the hostel boys come face to face with their ‘horror”, they take viewers on a laughter roller-coaster ride. The makers were having such a blast that A-listers decided to join in the fun. Stars like Rishabh Shetty and Divya Spandana as well as “Lucia” director Pawan Kumar, among others, signed up for cameos.
“Star cameos helped us unleash a different kind of chaos in the hostel. We were all newcomers and people would not have recognised us. But when a star came into this universe, it heightened their expectations,” says Krishnamurthy.
Rakshit Shetty’s Paramvah Studios helped the director take the marketing of the film to another level.
“I have always believed that a movie has to be marketed well. A lot of good films are not marketed well. People know about their existence only after they come to OTT platforms and then they say, ‘I should have watched this in theatres’. We did not want this to happen to ‘Hostel Hudugaru…’ Marketing is such an inevitable thing right now that if you do not market a film, people think it’s not a good film,” says Krishnamurthy. (PTI)