Actor-director Rishab Shetty, who won the Best Actor Award at the 70th National Film Awards, on Friday, said that he will not make “festival type” films anymore. He was speaking to PTI on the sidelines of a press conference organised for winning the Best Actor Award for his portrayal in the Kannada film ‘Kantara’.
The National Film Award winners were announced by Feature Film jury head Rahul Rawail in New Delhi. The awards celebrated the best films made in 2022.
“We premiere at festivals and win awards, but we do not get any platform for that. OTT platforms do not buy Kannada content, so we are forced to put it on YouTube channels. I am done with that. We don’t get any recovery from such films,” said Shetty. He said he has done three such festival films so far.
“Couple more are in the pipeline – ‘Pedro’ and ‘Vagachipani’. I produced them, because films gave me everything. I wanted to give something back to it. I think I am going to see how it goes in the future,” he added.
Incidentally, ‘Kantara’ also won the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment Award. Shetty said he was neither expecting to win the award nor excited about winning it.
“I just do my work, but ‘Kantara’s’ win should go to every team member involved in it. I am just a face of it, but there were a lot of technicians who gave their best for the film. I want to thank the people on their behalf,” he added.
Shetty also thanked the Kannada audience. “They are the ones who took the film to the pan-India platform,” he said.
Kannada film industry is one of the big winners this time. Apart from Best Actor and Best Popular Film, it also won the awards for Best Action Choreography (‘KGF Chapter 2’), Best Debut Director (Non-Feature Film) Basti Dinesh Shenoy for ‘Madhyanthara’, Best Editing (Non-Feature Film) for Suresh Urs for ‘Madhyanthara’ and Best Arts Culture Film for Kannada documentary film ‘Ranga Vibhoga by Suneel Puranik.
‘KGF Chapter 2’ also won the Best Kannada Film Award.
Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Union Minister for Steel, H D Kumaraswamy, posted congratulatory messages on ‘X’. “I hope your achievements will inspire all other artists in the film industry,” Siddaramaiah said.
