Preserving Kannada cinema: Suneel Puranik’s plans for a film museum

How the chairman of the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy hopes to document the film industry’s 85-year-old history

The Chairman of the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy (KCA), Suneel Puranik, has been in the Kannada film industry for over three decades. A popular name in showbiz, Puranik has worked in every branch of film-making. Almost a year and a half after he took over as KCA chairman, (he took charge on January 2, 2020) Puranik looks back at what aspired to and how much he was able to achieve. “The first thing I did when I took over was to create a road map for myself and the team. There is more to an academy than conducting film festivals. We need to create projects, reach out to younger filmmakers and create a more dynamic and academic approach so that they get to study the history of the Kannada film industry. In my three-year tenure, we set certain targets and we are happy to have made some progress in that direction.”