The year 2024 has been extremely harsh for Kannada cinema, with no film striking rich at the box office. A handful of films were critically acclaimed, and yet struggled with footfalls. The reluctance to head to a movie hall to watch a film seems to be limited to Kannada cinema, though.

There are big-ticket movies and smaller ones too from across the border that are doing phenomenal business in Karnataka. Kannada audiences are encouraging good content, just not in Kannada at the moment, prompting several filmmakers to opine that had certain films that had some good buzz around them been made in, say, Malayalam, they would have been blockbusters.

Actor-filmmaker Raj B Shetty, who is presenting the film Roopanthara in theatres through his Lighter Buddha Films was asked about this trend of disappearing audiences during the trailer launch. Seizing the opportunity, Raj said that this is the time that the industry should utilize to introspect and explore prospects of change.

“We need to take a step back and identify which route to take. It could be that the path we’ve chosen now is wrong; audiences have been saying as much. There is no point attacking the audience for not turning up at movie halls. They are coming to theatres when there is good cinema. So, if they are not coming to watch our movies, it is because there is something wrong with us. It could perhaps be an offshoot of the many years in which we did not give them good cinema; I do not know. As an industry, we need to address this collectively, keep making good cinema, and, hopefully, there will be a turnaround,” said Raj.

Roopanthara, which sees Raj as actor, dialogue writer and lyricist, has been directed by Mithilesh Edavalath. The film has been produced by Suhan Prasad, who made Ondu Motteya Kathe earlier. Cinematography is by Pravin Shriyan and music by Midhun Mukundan.

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