After 25 years as a theatre artiste, Ranji David has turned to cinema as another medium for creative exploration. His 40-minute black-and-white Kannada film, inspired by Italian painter Antonio Mancini, took shape during the pandemic when a planned play on painter Sadanand Bakre was put on hold. Around the same time, working on a short film changed how he saw cinema. “I realised that I could actually begin working with film as a medium,” he recalls.Drawn to Mancini’s story of an artist retreating into an imaginary world, Ranji says he was intrigued by “an artist obsessed with his work and struggling with mental health.” In a chat with Bangalore Times, Ranji sheds light on his journey from theatre to cinema, the changing Kannada film landscape and why creative exploration matters more than fame or money. Excerpts:‘I wanted to bring theatre methods into Kannada cinema’ Rather than recreate Italy, Ranji set the story in rural Karnataka. A village he discovered through one of his theatre actors became the film’s location. The decision to shoot in black and white came naturally. “Since the story was set around the 1930s, I felt black and white would work. There was something very rural and rustic about it,” he shares.His theatre background also shaped the filmmaking process. “I didn’t want to look at a script. I just wanted to actually explore devising as a methodology,” he says. The filmmaking process consequently became a long, collaborative journey, with shoots taking place between 2022 and 2025. Artists from Greece, Portugal and elsewhere, whom Ranji had met through his theatre workshops and travels, also joined the project. “These are people who are part of my journey,” he says.‘The Kannada industry is going through a sea of change’ For Ranji, a significant change is taking place in the wider Kannada film space, with short and independent films giving filmmakers more room to experiment. “Filmmakers are becoming more aware by watching the kind of stuff that’s happening outside Karnataka, primarily through OTT platforms,” he says.With world cinema now easily accessible, he believes filmmakers have a greater responsibility to learn and evolve. “Today, everything is at your fingertips. As a filmmaker, it is your homework to go online, watch, educate yourself, understand and thereby improve the quality of your own filmmaking.” He sees short films and festivals as an important part of this shift, helping audiences discover work beyond the mainstream.‘Films live longer than the makers themselves’ One of the biggest lessons Ranji has taken from making his first film is the longevity of the medium. “In theatre, you do a play in three or four months and maybe do three or four shows. Then it’s over, but films last longer. They live longer than the makers themselves and go into history sooner,” he says.The experience has encouraged him to explore cinema further, with plans for more black-and-white films and eventually a feature. But the rewards of filmmaking remain secondary to the process. “Name, fame and money are secondary. As an artist, the most important thing is creative exploration. That is the greatest high we get as artists,” he adds.
