'Naanu Gandhi' wins special award

N.R.Nanjundegowda's children's film Naanu Gandhi has won a special award in the recently held Columbia film festival.

This is for the first time that a children film made in any Indian language is being screened in the festival. It is to the credit of 'Naanu Gandhi' to have participated in the film festival.

'Naanu Gandhi' won a special award as the Best children film that propogated education values in the Columbia film festival. An elated Nanjunde Gowda who is balancing his directorial career by making children films and also bridge films with commercial and artistic values said that the recognition from the prestigious children film festival is the reward for the hard work by the entire unit.

He had made many children films in Kannada earlier including the award winning Chukki Chandrama and A Aa E Ee which also had theatrical release in Karnataka.

"I am a film director who firmly believe that the films are to be released in theatres for public viewing. I dont believe in making films for festivals and awards. My aim is to see that the film made by me is appreciated by the people however small number they may be. Yes, awards and recognisition are huge boost to our efforts. But I feel we should work towards reaching out people who come to theatres for viewing films," says Nanjunde Gowda.

Incidentally Naanu Gandhi has been screened in Toranto and Jefoni children film festivals in Canada and Toranto respectively. Nannunde Gowda has invariably based his films on some well written literary works. Naanu Gandhi was based on a short story written by Dr. Besagarahalli Ramanna, one of the well known story writers in Kannada. Another well known literary personality Raju Dalawai had written the dialogues for the film. Master Likith plays the important role in this children film which also has Veteran artists Sundar Raj, Prameela Joshai, Sadhashiva Brahmavar, Ramesh Bhat and Mandya Ramesh playing important roles in the film. V.Manohar is the music director of this film.