Kannada filmmaker Janardhan Chikkanna made a mark with his debut movie, Gultoo, a thriller focusing on cyber crime in 2018 and returns to the director’s chair with Powder, a comedy that he’s made based on a story by Deepak Venkateshan. The film, a collaboration between KRG Studios and The Viral Fever, is set to release in theatres on August 23.

Speaking to the media during the film’s trailer launch, Janardhan highlighted the challenges he had as a filmmaker in putting the project together. For starters, comedy is a genre that Janardhan had not dabbled with prior to this project and he knew that nailing humour could be tricky. “Comedy is all about timing and if you get that right, the film will hold good, and we’ve managed that to a great degree with Powder,” says Janardhan.

The filmmaker adds that the bigger issue was that he had a big star cast to work with. “The pool of talent, from Diganth to Dhanya Ramkumar, Sharmiela Mandre, Rangayana Raghu, Gopalkrishna Deshpande, Anirudh Acharya and Nagabhushana, among others, was an honour to work with. But I also needed to do justice to each of them and while I was happy at the opportunity, it was also a tad nerve-racking. I had all this talent at my disposal and needed to use them to their maximum potential in the film. On August 23, we will know if it’s worked the way we’ve hoped it would,” said Janardhan.

Powder is about how a bunch of youngsters- Diganth, Dhanya and Anirudh – come across a misplaced consignment of cocaine and try to sell it. However, with the dealers hot in pursuit, that’s going to be easier said than done. The filmmaker’s promise is for a light-hearted comedy.

The film was initially meant to be in theatres on July 12, but was then pushed ahead to August 15 and eventually August 23. While the initial postponement was because of delays in post production, the subsequent one was to accommodate films that KRG Studios is distributing in theatres, like, for instance, Raghu Thatha.

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