Mansore is too humble. Congratulating him doesn’t simply get you a ‘Thank you’. He will give credit to almost everybody else.
The ‘Nathicharami’ director, who is surrounded with praises at the moment with the film having picked up five National Awards, says he is only a captain leading from the front; the credit must go to his team.
He also thanks the jury at the National Awards. “They represented Kannada films very well. Usually, the representatives of Bengali, Malayalam and Hindi films put across their message really well. This doesn’t always happen with Kannada, and so many good Kannada films have missed out on the national awards,” he says.
In any case, the awards are a vindication to everyone who tried to pull ‘Nathicharami’ down, because the film has travelled some rough roads, and gained quite a few haters.
“These awards are an answer to them without my having to speak any words,” he says.
“In so many district centres, people were standing in front of the theatres, turning people away from the movies. Such people were telling the audience that Sruthi had done something very wrong to the industry,” he says.
Some people took snapshots of intimate scenes in the film and make memes out of them with the caption: “If she can do scenes like this on screen, what must her character be like in real life?”
Mansore said the comments section for the song ‘Vasundhare’ on YouTube will tell you how deep the misogyny runs.
In fact, the vulgar comments started much before the film even released as the song was put out about 15 days before the release of the movie.
“I spoke to Sruthi on the day the awards were declared. She was happy and very emotional. I have never seen Sruthi getting emotional,” he says.
‘Nathicharami’ has been doing very well on Netflix. While the online platform is very secretive about the number of views that its films get, the agency that came forward to take the film to Netflix said it was trending in India for two months straight after its launch on January 28.
The film has gathered a considerable fan following in the US and the UK, too. People from there find Mansore on Facebook and message him their praises.