‘French Biriyani will be a flavour of many characters’: Pannaga Bharana

After 'Happy New Year', the young director is set to release his next film virtually

July 23, 2020 04:10 pm | Updated 05:51 pm IST - Bengaluru

 

Pannaga Bharana is not only the son of noted filmmaker Nagabharana, but also shares his father’s passion for cinema. The young director, who started off as a director with Happy New Year, is ready with his next venture — French Biriyani . The film is produced by Puneeth Rajkumar’s PRK Production. Featuring Danish Sait, Rangayana Raghu, Sal Yusuf and Sindhu among others, the film will release on July 24 on Amazon Prime.

We start off asking Pannaga why the film is called ‘French Biriyani’ and not ‘Ambur’ or something more local. Pannaga laughs as he answers, “It is French Biriyani because the film is based on a Frenchman coming to Bengaluru and getting stuck with a Shivajinagar auto driver. What happens over the next three days is what forms the crux of the story.”

Pannga adds, “the ‘French’ represents the Frenchman and ‘biriyani’ represents Shivajinagar auto drivers. Just as biriyani is a mixture of spices that come together in this popular dish, the film also has many characters with different layers and their own motives, who come together and give you the flavour of the film.”

The film had completed its shoot long before the lockdown. “In fact, we were planning on a theatrical release earlier this year; but due to the pandemic and its effects we decided for an online release,” says the director. He also believes that releasing a film on an OTT platform “is easier as with just one click the entire world gets to view the film. It gets done in just one shot and the work reaches a larger audience. It, however, can never be the same as watching a film in a theatre,” feels Pannaga, who has also written the story for the film.

Is he influenced by his father’s style when it comes to working? “I don’t think so as I am my own person. We are all very different from our parents — the ambience we grow up in and the things we learn are different from what they learn. So I would rather say that my film has my own stamp on it. I would rather not bring my father’s name to this film at all. This is an experimental film. I do, however, have his genes and learnt a lot from him,” shares the director who also has a word of praise for Danish.

“The script was written nine years ago and I thought it could never be made in Kannada as everything finally boils down to the business market. But, when I met Danish, I felt there was something different about him. I went home and reworked the script and narrated it to Danish and he immediately agreed. If not for him, I don’t think the film would have ever been made.”

French Biriyani will have “Bengaluru Kannada, how we converse with each other — mixing Kannada and English or if in Shivajinagar area we use a mix of Urdu and Kannada and so on. So the film will also be a mix of everything that the city is known for. Hence, I would call French Biriyani it a very Bengaluru film.”

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