On August 5, in the presence of media representatives from supposedly 21 countries, the team of the Kannada film Martin, released its first trailer. The event in Mumbai had the lead cast – Dhruva Sarja, Vaibhavi Shandilya and Anveshi Jain, story writer Arjun Sarja, director AP Arjun and producer Uday K Mehta in attendance. The trailer that was ‘launched’ was the same one that they’d shown Dhruva fans a day earlier at a Bengaluru theatre, visuals of which were viral on social media. But this is not about the trailer, which has left netizens divided. This is about the event itself – when you set out to conduct a programme with global media in attendance, the least one ought to do is put on a spectacular show that is going to be talked about not only by the invitees, but their audiences too. Did team Martin succeed on that count?

Well, let’s be honest here – the execution of the Martin international press meet left a lot to be desired. For starters, as was seen during the teaser launch in February 2023, Dhruva Sarja and AP Arjun are still ill-equipped in dealing with non-Kannada press. While Dhruva needed questions in English to be translated in Kannada before he could respond at the teaser launch, this time he fared a tad better, but the team seemed to believe that they are so famous that they needed no introductions.

This became glaringly apparent when a member of the foreign media addressed Arjun Sarja about the casting choice of Dhruva, seemingly oblivious to the relationship between the duo, or the work either has done prior to Martin. Dhruva’s answers about Martin were either cut abruptly by an annoying recording of ‘Martin’ urging him not to divulge any details, or were not really informative for the media that had been flown in. For instance, in a segment that Dhruva spoke about the technicians, he spoke about Imran master and Murali master, among others. This works fine for Kannada movie journalists, who know these choreographers and know the context. But what about the others? “Yes Boss” is also what Dhruva deemed okay to respond when a foreign journalist addressed him.

Heroine Vaibhavi Shandilya oscillated between Hindi and English while addressing a gathering that included foreign nationals, who were, perhaps, attending a press meet for a Kannada film for the very first time. Worst still was AP Arjun, who answered in Kannada to a question from a foreign delegate, which was shoddily translated by the emcee and served no purpose eventually. There was no effort from the team to ensure that the foreign media was kept abreast of what was happening during the question and answer round, during which a lot of the responses were in Kannada or Tamil.

And, if you are also wondering what purpose the skimpily-clad models with guns were doing standing behind the team of Martin, well, we are as lost as you!

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