Adithya Prakash’s short signals the rise of a promising Kannada filmmaker

Adithya Prakash’s Kannada mid-length thriller ‘Watch Out Krishna’ mixes sharp humor with subtle yet relatable social commentary

The healthy practice of screening short films on the big screen is growing in Bengaluru. Up-and-coming filmmakers are enthusiastic about showcasing their work to movie buffs and industry professionals. Adithya Prakash is one such filmmaker.

His one-hour long Kannada film, Watch Out Krishna, is a big step towards his ambition of becoming a director who makes “audience films”. The term is not hard to understand when you watch Adithya’s comedy thriller that blends auteurist artistry with entertainment to cater to the masses. The film, with impressive music from Navaneeth Sham, was recently screened at the Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy.

A trained actor, Adithya wanted to write a film to explore his performing abilities. As he worked on a three-act structure, the story took precedence and acting took a back seat. Thoughts ran wild, and unconventional characters cropped up. From a nosy house owner and an amusing car lover to the real estate boom in Mysuru, colourful people and real scenarios propelled his script.

“The biggest motivation to write Watch Out Krishna was the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. The intensity of the scene is inexplicable,” he says. A childhood experience of being verbally abused during a road rage incident stayed with Adithya for years, and it has made it into the script of the film as well.

Punith Belagatta in Watch Out Krishna | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Splitting the film into chapters is perhaps a hat-tip to Tarantino, but Adithya’s idols are not only from Hollywood. His favourites range from Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Winter Sleep) and Iranian great Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry), to Serbian director Emir Kusturica (Black Cat, White Cat) and Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things).