Vasanth Kalyan comes from a humble background. Born in scenic Madhugiri, Vasanth was born to Rangshamanna, who worked hard as a construction mestri. While his father toiled to nurture his family, busy building concrete buildings, young Vasanth built huge dreams. Yet, cinema was not something he “ever thought of”.
Knowing in his heart that he had creative leanings, the young man took to the arts and his passion brought him to Bangalore University, where he completed his Masters in Arts. “It was here that I had classmates, whose siblings were into the film industry. Most of them worked as art directors. My friend, Senthil Kumar is the brother of art director Shivakumar, who is also the art director for the blockbuster film -- KGF,” says Vasanth, talking about his journey into the world of films.
He had no clue about films or the film world. He started meeting people from the industry . “Soon, Senthil and I started working in the art direction departments for Kannada films. What started out as a hobby soon turned to passion,” adds Vasanth, who soon found himself drawn towards the world of films.
Soon he was no longer content just being an art director. “Being an artist gives us an added edge as art directors. We can visualise everything that the director wants and even create a sketch for him before we do so in brick and mortar,” feels Vasanth, who then started working as an assistant art director in a few films, which included Andhar Bahar , featuring Shivanna.
Soon, Vasanth started nurturing a dream to become a director too and shared it with Shivakumar, who “guided me to work in the direction department by introducing me to a few directors”. To keep his financial boat afloat, Vasanth even worked for an MNC for a few years, but soon tired of it “as life became mechanical.”
Vasanth then took the next big decision of his life, “I quit my job and took a full time job as an assistant director. Krishnan Marriage and Ee Bhoomi, AA Bhanu are some of the films he worked as an assistant director. “I even worked for an untitled Hindi film, but unfortunately, the project was stalled halfway,” shares Vasanth, who has also worked with well-known director R Chandru too.
A chance offer to appear in a cameo in Mast Kalandar, boosted Vasanth’s confidence that he could act too. “When my family saw me on screen, they suggested I give it a shot too. Coincidentally, another friend of mine, Ajay Surya, was also getting ready with his debut film as a director and offered me the lead role. I was blown away.”
The film is titled Vijayaratha and “it has all the elements of an entertainer and leans towards comedy,” smiles Vasanth, who also states the film has playback singers like Kailash Kher, Vijay Prakash, Anurag Kulkari and Anuradha Bhat singing for it. That is not all, the film also stars Archana Jois, today popular as ‘Rocky bhai’ mother in KGF.
The film is produced by Vruksha Creations, headed by his brother, Ramesh and the brothers look forward to releasing the film in August.
“Dreaming about and making a film is easy, but its production and the release is a herculean task. All of us — the director, actors and the technical team — have put our heart and soul into Vijayaratha . Now we are racing against time to complete the dubbing and hope to launch the film soon.”
