The Kannada industry has just not been able to catch a break since the beginning of 2024. Despite a flurry of small yet content-oriented films flooding the market, audiences all but deserted movie halls. The contention by industry insiders was that audiences were only favouring star-led event films that offered a ‘cinematic experience’.

And yet, smaller content-backed Malayalam films, like Premalu and Manjummel Boys, for instance, did phenomenal business in Bengaluru, driven largely by non-Malayali audience, including Kannadigas. Weighing in on this dull phase that the Kannada film industry is experiencing currently was Kantara cinematographer Arvind Kashyap, during a recent round-table of DOPs conducted by RJ Mayuraa Raghavendra on his YouTube channel.

Confident that Sandalwood will bounce back from this phase, Arvind said that now is the time for industry insiders to sit back and introspect what’s going wrong for them. “We need to understand what can be done better,” he says, adding, “Just over a year ago, similar discussions were happening in the Malayalam film industry. There too, audiences were shunning theatres and Malayalam cinema was not featuring in the top 10 most popular titles. They were also contemplating about their future and turned around their prospects brilliantly. This year has been fantastic for them. They’ve bounced back and how making them one of the, if not the, highest grossing industries.”

Arvind adds that the focus should also be on making theatres more accessible to audiences. With multiple avenues available to people, the practice of going to theatres has diminished. The question, he says, is how to revive this and get people back in movie halls. Having said that, Arvind is also of the firm belief that when a genuinely good film come out, audiences will head to theatres.

He is, however, hopeful that audiences will get out of the mindset of only heading to theatres for star-led big-budget films. “The industry will regain hope when every now and then even smaller films do well at the box office. If everyone decides that big-budget films are the only way forward, it is impossible for the industry to survive,” he reckons.

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