Kannada Cinema Roundtable 2025: A call for consistency, originality and telling rooted stories

Bengaluru’s movie buffs braved the biting cold to gather for an evening of free-flowing conversation on films of the year at the Kannada Cinema Roundtable at Mannheim Craft Brewery, Whitefield, on Friday.

The event was held as part of The Hindu’s Lit for Life Unplugged, a precursor to the Lit for Life happening on January 17 & 18, 2026, in Chennai.

The star-studded panel included debutant directors Punit Rangaswamy and J.P. Thuminad, actor Chaithra J. Achar, actor-writer Shaneel Gautham, film critic Kairam Vaashi, and the head of Content at Zee5 Pradeepa.

Of language and more

Speaking about his maiden directorial, Su from So, a small-budget film which became the talk of 2025, Thuminad said, “I knew the Mangaluru audience would watch this comedy. But as we kept travelling with the film across the State, the paid premieres grew from 4 to 34. That’s when we realised, non-native speakers watch films unmindful of which regional language and dialect they are made in. Similarly, audience watched Su from So as a Kannada movie, and not a movie from coastal Karnataka”.

Punit Rangaswamy, who made his breakthrough with Elumale, highlighted the need to get audiences used to watching non-star movies in the theatres. “We are the ones who have disconnected audience from cinema, and it is only good cinema that can bring them back. We can’t blame the audience for not coming, neither must we beg them to come to the theatres.”

Actor Shaneel Gautum, who also co-wrote Kantara Chapter-1, spoke of treating the film independent of the Kantara. “Rishab had that clarity. A miracle happened in the first part. So the second one had to entertain. We wanted to tell the origin story of Tulu Naadu.”

Not restricting herself to a language or industry and accepting every opportunity that comes her way is the mantra for actor Chaithra, who made her Tamil debut with 3BHK this year. “I think in Kannada. So wherever else I go is my karmabhoomi”.

OTT content

Reflecting on whether OTT content could suffer in quality if series are treated as an extension of daily soaps for a TV-watching audience, Pradeep said, “Our primary strategy is to convert 10-20% of those viewers into subscribers because that’s where the revenue lies. The programming is also data-driven, and that enables us to strategise which audience to target with which project. We can’t compare with Netflix and Amazon, and must understand the kind of investments being made”.

The speakers agreed that consistency and rooted storytelling are key to lifting Kannada films from the slump that they tend to get into after a good run every year.

While film critic Kairam Vaashi pinned his hopes on debutant directors relying on originality to bring the audience back to the theatres, Shaneel added that the new generation of filmmakers is aware of the need to stick to their roots. “By building a relatable world, at least a few filmmakers are trying to address that disconnect with people,” he said.

The event is presented by the all-new Kia Seltos in association with CHRIST (Deemed to be University) and NITTE Meenakshi Institute of Technology. The bookstore partner is Crossword.