Girish Kasaravalli to make TV magnum opus

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">KOLKATA: Following Govind Nihalani and Shyam Benegal, eminent Kannada film maker Girish Kasaravalli has also given in to the lure of the small screen. He is making a 80-episode magnum opus that will be aired on television soon.<br /><br />Kasaravalli, who is the third filmmaker after Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen to have received the President''s Golden Lotus four times, told a media conference here on Tuesday that it was the cinematic language and not the medium that mattered while making a meaningful work.<br /><br />The film maker, whose feature <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dweepa</span> won the national award for best film this year, said the teleserial <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Grihabhanga</span> based on a novel by Dr S L Byrappa, could only have made a mediocre film.<br /><br />"The story was just suited for a teleserial with its myriad plots and sub-plots and richness of characters," Kasaravalli, here to attend the second international social communication conference, said.<br /><br />Admitting that he was initially hesitant to do a teleserial because of the immense ''pressure to deliver'' and the time-bound nature of the production, Kasaravalli said he gave in owing to the literary grandeur of the plot.<br /><br />"It is the story of socio-political changes in the last 50 years spanning three generations and involving 10 important characters.Such a story cannot be treated properly in two hours. Only a serialised format could do justice to it," he pointed out.<br /><br />The serial, woven around the story of Nanjamma, her irresponsible husband, mother-in-law and related characters, will be aired on ETV Kannada. Out of his repertoire of nine films made in the last 25 years, four of which -- <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Ghatashradhha, Tabarana Katha, Tai Saheba </span>and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dweepa</span> -- won the Golden Lotus, most were based on well known literary works.<br /><br />"For me the difference between documentary and feature film does not exist. Most of my feature work has shades of documentary and almost always has political overtones," Kasaravalli said.<br /><br />The film maker, dubbed as the lone crusader left in the original Kannada movement of serious film making, regretted that crass ''commercial'' cinema was weaning away audiences from films with social themes.<br /><br />"I feel very sad. There were audiences who watched such films being produced at regular intervals earlier. But now one such film comes at a gap of 3-4 years despite the huge subsidies given by the Karnataka government to produce ''quality films," he said.<br /><br />Subsidies, which had gone up from the Rs one lakh in the 1970s to about Rs 30 lakh today, had not been able to lure serious film makers into the genre, he pointed out.<br /><br />Talking about <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dweepa, </span>screened as the inaugural film of the conference last evening, he said his great fascination for rain and the metaphor of water symbolising life, had been used to portray the human trauma behind the process of displacement</div> </div>