When debutant filmmaker Chandrajith Belliappa was scouting for a talent to play the character of Madhumita in Ibbani Tabbida Ileyali, he revisited the 1989 romantic drama Geethanjali, and was instantly struck by its heroine Girija Shettar, who’d disappeared from cinema shortly after. Her performance as Geethanjali stuck with the filmmaker, who also thought she’d be perfect for the role. But then, she’d not done a film in more than 3 decades and he did not have a direct line of contact with her.

Geethanjali fame Girija Shettar in Ibbani Tabbida Ileyali 

Unperturbed, Chandrajith reached out to Girija on social media about doing the role, which, she was not keen to take up at first, given her long absence from cinema. But the filmmaker persisted, and urged her to at least read the script, even partially, before refusing him. He was okay with her saying No, but he wanted it to be after she was aware of the scope of the role.

“I told her that if she finds the script interesting and reads it fully and then feels like doing the role, we’d be happy to have her onboard. Luckily, she agreed, but the challenge was that she’s a British national and does not know the language. We conducted online workshops for her before she flew down to shoot her portions, during which she’d not only learn her Kannada lines, but also insist that we explain what each word means. This helped her perform with the right emotions while delivering those lines. Obviously, owing to her accent, we had to use a dubbing artiste eventually,” says Chandrajith.

Ibbani Tabbida Ileyali is a romantic drama produced by Rakshit Shetty and starring Vihan, Ankita Amar and Mayuri Nataraj in the main lead. The film is set to release in theatres on September 5, in direct competition with Thalapathy Vijay’s The GOAT.

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