Sandalwood must value its writers: Simple Suni

Director says he always reads his script to a family audience before launching a film

He’s a filmmaker who’s known for making cinema that not just appeals to the youth, but also entertains a family audience.

With a copious amount of humour incorporated in almost all his storylines, Suni, popularly known as Simple Suni, has managed to strike a chord with Kannada film buffs with his script.

His latest film ‘Avatar Purusha’, starring Sharan and Ashika Ranganath has a comical teaser merged with a bit of VFX and was released last week.

“I was intrigued by the subject of black magic. I first wrote a web series with the theme but decided to make it a film as I wasn’t sure how OTT would work with Kannada audiences. I knew that the story would suit Sharan sir and his audiences and hence wanted to work with him.”

The filmmaker reveals that working with the Sharan-Ashika combo was an exciting experience. “I was really glad to work with Sharan sir. I was an assistant director when he was an artiste — he hasn’t changed one bit since then. As for Ashika, she plays a mature character and dedicated herself to learning the dialogues meticulously,” says the director, who’s a bit apprehensive about how audiences will receive the black magic concept.

“I took inspiration from a bunch of novels I’d read. Thulasi Dala was one of them,” he adds.

The director, who manages to touch upon diverse subjects in his films, is already set to start his next film — an untitled project with Golden star Ganesh.

A courtroom drama, which promises to be ‘fun’ just like Operation Alamelamma, this film too will have Suni’s trademark humour.

“I didn’t write any comedy track in my film Bahuparaak — that’s when people told me that they want at least some entertainment in my films! I’ve always written comic stuff — I enjoy giving comebacks to the boys when playing cricket, but my entire team is like that. Earlier, I wrote it alone because I didn’t have enough money for a team, but now we have a group that writes comedy dialogues,” he reveals.

Suni admits that he makes a conscious decision to ensure that his films appeal to all. “When I’m writing, I write with an open mind. But when it comes to what makes it to the final script, I delete anything that crosses the line. I always read my script to a family audience and then decide what to do,” ruminates the filmmaker, who believes that local original writers should be given more importance.

“Outside writers get around Rs 25 lakh, but here, they get only upto Rs 1 lakh, which is why a lot of them pursue it as a hobby and can’t take it up full-time. Also, multiplexes should have more shows for Kannada films. Recent films like ‘Love Mocktail’, ‘Dia’ etc are so good, but there’s hardly one show in the very first week of release,” he rues.

With films like ‘Avane Shriman Narayana’ breaking records when it comes to collections in the very first week, Suni feels that marketing and publicity had a huge role to play in its reach.

“The credit goes to Rakshith Shetty and producer Pushkara. A huge amount of people got introduced to Kannada cinema through KGF. Look at the Korean film ‘Parasite’ and how it won an Oscar — if you create good content, it will reach anywhere, we just have to put in the effort,” he says.