Pinki Elli, the Kannada film that has created a sensation in film festivals across the globe is finally coming home for a theatrical release. The film is set for release across Karnataka on June 2.
For the last three years Pinki Elli (Where is Pinki) has travelled the world winning accolades everywhere. It won two awards at the New York Indian Film Festival before bagging the Best Film award in the Kannada Cinema competition at the 13th Bengaluru International Film Festival last year. It was also the only Kannada film in the Indian Panorama section at the International Film Festival of India in 2020.
The film’s producer Krishne Gowda, on finally getting a commercial release for the film, said, “It is not easy even to release films made for commercial runs. So you can imagine the hurdles faced by content-oriented films. For over two years, our film has won praise and prizes across the world. There is awareness among the regular film viewers about this film now. We had earlier planned to release the film in March. We changed the plan so that we could avoid the recently concluded Assembly elections. The film will be released on June 2 across Karnataka,” he said.
The film is directed by Prithvi Konanur who had made the National Award winning Railway Children earlier in 2016. Pinki Elli is a 107-minute thriller about a single working mother, who loses her eight-month-old and begins a frantic search for her. Konanur was inspired by a newspaper report about infants being hired by beggars and spent years researching on the issue.
In the film, Akshatha Pandavapura, plays the mother Bindushree, who leaves her infant in the care of a nanny, Sannamma. Sannamma ‘rents’ the child to a beggar who begs at traffic signals. The latter loses the child leading to a desperate search during the course of a day. The film explores the issue of child trafficking as well as illegal adoption.
“I must have heard over a hundred stories, read as many books and spent countless days researching for good stories. Konanur’s story was not only special but explored a very serious issue. I had full confidence that he would turn this into a special film. It has been proved with how the film has been received not only in film festivals in India but across the world,” Krishne Gowda said.
The film stars Akshatha Pandavapura, Gunjalamma, Deepak Subramanya, Anoop Shoonya among others.
