Interview with U-Turn Director-Pawan Kumar

After the stupendous success of his crowdfunded film 'Lucia', Kannada director Pawan Kumar is set to premiere his next at the New York Film Festival.

Director Pawan Kumar made his debut in Kannada films in 2011 with Lifeu Ishtene which was a box office success. He chose to take the unusual route of crowdfunding for his next project Lucia which became a globally recognised cult film. Now, Kumar is readying for the release of his next called U-Turn in May. In an exclusive chat with dna, Pawan Kumar talks about his films, production company and more.

How did U-Turn happen?

U-Turn was written while I was working on the Nicotine script. We created our production house. We produced this movie ourselves. Nicotine is a big film and we didn’t want to compromise on the quality for that script. So getting it together took a year and meanwhile I could start U-Turn with new people and shoot it immediately.

U-Turn is your production ?

We created a production house called PKS (Pawan Kumar Studios) and in a way it is crowdfunded because there are 65 people who are shareholders. With Lucia and crowdfunding, it stopped after one movie. But with this we should be able to fund a series of films. After Lucia, many people contacted and said they wanted to wanted to fund Kannada films. These people are from all walks of life around the world and not connected to the film industry. The creative decisions are made by me and my team but I keep them posted on everything that is happening and take their suggestions. They are aware that the growth of the independent cinema industry is quite slow.

So Nicotine is still on the anvil?

Well, it could still get made if U-Turn does really well and makes money. I am just waiting for the release of this film to decide. I need to go back and do some tweaking to the script. After U-Turn’s release, I guess a lot of things will change.

When is U-Turn releasing?

We were planning to release it by the end of April but the film got selected for the New York Film Festival where it will have its world premiere. So I think post mid-May (20th May)it will release in India.

After Lucia, there was talk of the Hindi remake.

Fox has bought Hindi remake rights and, for various internal reasons, it wasn’t able to mount the project as promised. My one-year term with them which I had promised them also got over and I started writing. Lucia was a two-and-a-half-year project and it burnt me out. So I took six months off.

Were you disappointed that the Hindi remake didn’t take off?

It’s still a project that’s hanging there, so I might get to direct it. But I just feel that there so many pros and cons that studios think about before making a film. I don’t understand their process and that’s what I found different when working with a studio. It’s not impulsive which is how I made Lucia or U-Turn. We just jumped in.

Lucia was a path-breaking film in Indian cinema. Is U-Turn similar?

You can’t think of creating something unique, it has to happen on its own. That’s what happened with Lucia and the same thing happened with U-Turn. I got excited about an idea involving the KH Double Road flyover (in Bengaluru). I think it was the second flyover built in Bengaluru and it has its own history over the last several years where its orientation used to keep changing. For a long time, it became the only flyover in the world to have signal on top of it! Then they removed the signal and added some dividers and so on. Many Bangaloreans relate to it and all the traffic jams that happen on it. I thought of an idea and it was supposed to be a Facebook status or, at the most, a short film. But, luckily, it grew to be an engaging feature film. We also had the funding coming in at the right time.

How is U-Turn different?

It has no songs and being a mystery thriller the story unfolds over several days. Some of the challenges that I took personally was to not make it complex like how Lucia was. I wanted the film to be linear in narrative. The topic has to do with traffic rules and how we behave in traffic and for it to be seen by as many people and understood we didn’t want to get into this complex narrative. It is still my way of making a film but anyone will be able to watch the film and take home something from it.

Lucia premiered in London. U-Turn will premiere in New York.

Are you happy that you’ve been able to Kannada films to the global stage?

There are Kannada films that are purely made for festivals and the sad part is no one ever gets to see them. I start off by thinking I want to share this film with the audience and then make the film only for them. Then I see if the film can be part of any festival. Luckily it worked that way with both these films. Every festival I’ve applied for they start wondering what language this is, which part of south India it comes from. I like the fact that my films are trying to introduce Kannada films to people who are not aware of them.

But you’ve also reintroduced Kannada films to people in India.

Lucia struck a chord with all the youngsters who follow cult cinema. When people say that Lucia was the first Kannada film they’ve watched, it’s a very proud moment for me.

Is your young daughter into films? She’s featured a lot on your social media.

(Laughs) In U-Turn, there’s a shot of a child sleeping and that’s my daughter actually. We couldn’t get any other baby so we used her. She’ll be very unhappy to know that if she ever becomes an actress that this would be her debut.