In an era where the glimmer of the silver screen entices many from their established careers, one individual, Nag Venkat, finds his true calling in the labyrinth of storytelling. Heralding from the tech city of Bengaluru, Venkat is not your typical filmmaker. His odyssey began in a world poles apart from cinema, amidst the bustling life of a software engineer. A prodigious decade in the IT realm did little to quell his fervent desire to narrate tales through the medium of film—a passion that incessantly whispered to him that filmmaking was his destined path, or as Venkat articulates during a recent call from Hyderabad, “Or at least doing something in this field.”
As serendipity would have it, his determination eventually culminated in his debut venture as a writer-director, “Kailasa Kasidre,” set to grace the screens on March 8. The narrative invites viewers into the life of a nonchalant boy, Deepak, whose seemingly uneventful existence is rattled following a chance encounter with Anjali, a fellow software engineer. The twist? A plunge into the nefarious underworld of drugs launches the duo into a high-stakes cat-and-mouse escapade with the law, a tapestry intricately woven with threads of action, romance, and comedy.
The genesis of his film mirrors the intricate nuances of India’s cultural landscape. Born in Bellary and educated in Andhra Pradesh, Venkat found solace and opportunity in Bengaluru’s dynamic atmosphere. His film is an amalgamation of the multifaceted experiences he lived and observed, with drama, romance, comedy, and crime forming the story’s backbone. The real-life drug bust in Hyderabad in 2007 proved to be a catalyst for Venkat’s imagination, sparking a desire to mold the incident into an engaging cinematic experience, thus leading to the birth of “Kailasa Kasidre.”
The transition from a software engineer to a creator in the cine-world was not an overnight phenomenon. Venkat fortified his vision by engaging as an executive producer for the Telugu web series “Lingababu Love Stories,” and through several short films, including the Telugu production “Murder @ 10am.” When the moment arrived to choose the language for his debut feature, Kannada was the chosen vernacular. His rationale? Bengaluru’s eclectic audience that voraciously consumes cinema in a plethora of languages and embraces content-driven, low-budget films.
Albeit his roots in Andhra Pradesh and the option to create a Telugu film, Venkat found his niche among the innovative and discerning Kannada audience. He describes them as intelligent, well-informed, and receptive to new ideas. This melting pot of cultural cinema made Bengaluru an ideal place where languages blur and storytelling takes precedence.
2017 marked a pivotal year for Venkat. He observed an emerging trend where audiences voraciously consumed streaming content, and storytellers were emboldened to explore uncharted territories. It was a zeitgeist moment that kindled within him the courage to resign from his stable job and etch his mark in the film industry.
Post-departure from his IT career, Venkat immersed himself in the craft of storytelling, participating in screenplay workshops, attending film festivals nationwide, and honing his directorial skills in anticipation of his debut feature. He believed the time was ripe to venture into the world of films, where the audience’s evolving palate for diverse stories beckoned.
“Kailasa Kasidre” features Ravi Kiran, known for “Tarakasura,” and Sukanya Girish in the leads, with an ensemble supporting cast including Suraj, Ninasam Ashwath, and Lokesh KV Akarsh. The film finds its wings through Wasiq Alsaad, an entrepreneur from Anantapur, producing his first venture in the Kannada Film Industry. The film’s cinematographic vision is orchestrated by Vinod Rajendran, while the musical landscapes are crafted by Ashic Arun.
As the premiere of “Kailasa Kasidre” approaches, audiences anticipate the unveiling of a story that traverses genres, brought to life by a software engineer turned filmmaker. Nag Venkat stands at the precipice of a new chapter, ready to share with the world a tale born out of the streets of Hyderabad but destined for the widescreen.
