Kannada film Bheemasena Nalamaharaja that was released on Amazon Prime Video on October 29, takes the audience through the life of a cook played by Aravinnd Iyer and his journey of love, life, and loss.
Talking to Silverscreen India, Aravinnd Iyer said, “The film released in 200 countries so we have been receiving messages from all around the world saying they felt the cultural experience from Karnataka shown in this movie. That makes us feel really happy,”
“The fact that we are able to share our movie with so many people is something the team is very proud of,” he added.
Director of the film Karthik Saragur said that OTT platforms have given an opportunity to regional films to cross boundaries and reach a wider audience. “Earlier, there was a time when a regional film had to attain a certain status to cross the state’s boundaries for it be able to either be telecasted on national media or to be released in a different city’s theatre. OTT has blurred those boundaries. Now, we are able to do a leap in crossing those boundary limitations very fast. The streaming platform also gives an opportunity to get bring together people from different yet similar cultural backgrounds.” he said.
According to Karthik, Aravinnd’s character enjoys cross-dressing and has a mythological reference and a deeper meaning. “There was a strong defence when we were thinking about the cross-dressing part. Bheema during his exile, before killing Kichata, chose to dress as a woman. So if anybody asks me why I chose to show it, there is a strong mythological reference to it. But I also wanted to show a couple so compatible with each other that there are no boundaries between them. The choice to explore the cross-dressing of the character was more to do with the liberation from the stereotype which has been created rather than being experimental.”
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Bheemasena Nalamaharaja is Karthik’s second film after Jeerjimbe, which won multiple Karnataka State Film Awards.
Aarohi Narayan who plays the role of Vedavalli, an ardent lover of food with a troubled past in the film said, “Women are not easily given strong and power-packed roles. So, when Karthik sir narrated the story to me, the very first thing that I appreciated about it was that the woman was given attention here. She was the main subject in the story, everything revolved around her.”
The film was released on Amazon Prime Video in 200 countries.