By Staff
Reporter-TORONTO
Ace Canadian Director Brinda Muralidhar is bringing
out her first feature film Knot Not! that will premiere for Canadian audiences
on October 13.
A coming of age story of
Mohan and his family, the film is about Mohan (Dilip Krishnamurthy) a young man from
South India who arrives in Canada for higher studies. Soon he makes friends with Patricia Smith
(Jessica Siegner) a pleasant, independent Canadian girl. All is well until Mohan’s parents Srinivas (Bala
Ramanathan) and Padma (Brinda Muralidhar) arrive in Canada. Srinivas wants Mohan to marry Lakshmi (Suniti
Santosh) daughter of his Indo-Canadian friend, the light-hearted Bhaskar (Nat
Pennathur). Lakshmi is a delightful girl
who cherishes great family values.
Mohan likes her, but before he embarks on his new journey, he has a
major task to complete. He is yet to
figure out what he wants!
“The central subject of Knot Not! is something that has
distressed me for a long time,” says Muralidhar. “I have witnessed similar stories in my own
circles. While there are many families
that are flourishing happily, in a myriad of ways many families are
crumbling. Knot Not! has one such theme
that has allowed me to explore two important aspects: ‘Why so’? And ‘now what?”
My film has a great concept,
layered storyline, believable characters, and relatable situations,” she says.
“Knot Not! is filled with
out-of-the box moments, memorable dialogues and pleasing visuals. It showcases our inherent Indian values blended with Canadian values in
a balanced narrative.”
Coming from a family of theatre and cine-artists
in India, Muralidhar’s father was a playwright and director and her uncle, a
celebrated theatre and cinema artist and a film producer.
“I grew up listening to the
stories my father would tell”, she says. “He would often take a guy from our
neighbourhood, train and transform him to play a series of amazing characters
on stage. He had a knack for narrative, which I seem to have inherited from
him.”
Her tryst with a progressive theatre group was where
she met her husband – Gunny Muralidhar. A
brief stint in Dubai and then towards greener pastures to Canada.
“Gunny had promised me I could do more theatre in
Canada”, laughs Muralidhar. “At that time, I thought the idea was
preposterous.”
Over the years, the couple became actively involved
in the Canadian theatre scene. Soon
they established KalaaRanga Performing Arts, a not-for-profit theatre company,
through which she has written and directed over 14 stage productions.
What prompted her foray into feature film making?
“It was Gunny. He told me our marriage was over if I
didn’t work on a film”, she laughs. “But on a more serious note, Knot Not! was
initially supposed to be a short film. We
had a lot of first time actors, and we hoped to wrap it up in six weekends. “However, the more I interacted with the
cast, the more we felt that this was a story that needed to be told, and told
well.”
“And so it moved, from a short film, to a feature
film, tripling the amount of work and budgets went skyrocketing. But we had to do it, there was no turning
back.
What was her biggest challenge? “My biggest
challenge was to make a complex story, entertaining to the audience. Knot Not! is filled with moments that
are fun to watch, yet thought provoking, anger inducing, and at the same time laughter
too.”
Knot Not! is a story that needs to be told over and over
again as long as marriages happen. It is a story that can happen to anyone, if
they LET IT happen to them, she says.
“It has a global resonance. Knot Not! is not just about
happy endings, it is about stopping the bad beginnings.”
The film Knot Not! is
heartwarming, fun inducing, thought provoking, she says.
“I want my audience to come to
the auditorium anticipating to be entertained in a tasteful way, and when they
leave, they should feel their time was well spent,” she says.
No comments :
Post a Comment
Your comments are welcome.