Ganesh Hegde on getting Neeli Hakki on OTT without a theatrical release | Exclusive

Neeli Hakki is Ganesh Hegde’s debut directorial, a festival film that got him a state award, but then struggled to find an OTT partner for the lack of a theatrical release. It's on OTT this week

Gopalkrishna Deshpande, Nidhi Hegde, Aman S Karkera in Neeli Hakki

An impoverished family of three living in the outskirts of a forest in Karnataka is at the heart of debutant director Ganesh Hegde’s Neeli Hakki. The head of the family is Maasti (Gopalkrishna Deshpande), who is in debt with the local grocer, while his wife Ganapi (Nidhi Hegde) contributes to the household with her meagre earnings from her vegetable patch and the milk from their cow. Their young son Sidda (Aman S Karkera) is more fascinated by the forest and the tales his grandfather tells him of all things nature, than heading to school.

But then, life changes around for the young boy, when the family migrates to the city in search of greener pastures. Can he cope with this upheaval? That’s at the core of Ganesh’s film. Neeli Hakki, says the filmmaker, is a mix of constructive realism and fantasy. “One of the conscious choices I made is that I wanted to narrate their time in the village to be smooth and seamless, where time flows in a different way. When they move to the city, there is an abrupt change in the narrative and you don’t see much of their life, because it doesn’t matter anymore,” says Ganesh.

The filmmaker took his time getting to this shift. “Yes, 65% of the narrative is when they belong to the village and the rest is choppy because that sense of home no longer exists. It’s a construction I chose to show that a lot of stuff becomes immaterial. I also chose to focus on the kid and not the parents, because they’ve been lost in the whole process of getting to the city and making a life there,” he explains.

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Why Ganesh Hegde's Neeli Hakki is skipping a theatrical outing

Neeli Hakki, which got Ganesh a best debut state award way back in 2020, had its festival run amid the pandemic in 2021-22, following which he’d been trying to get it on to a streaming service. “Yes, it has taken a few years, but I still think I managed to find a platform sooner than many others. The big players don’t take movies unless there’s a theatrical release. Filmmakers like me are more than happy with the pay-per-view system, but they have their rules. A theatrical release, however minimalistic, though, will set one back by at least Rs 15 lakh,” he explains.

Ganesh was clear that a theatrical release is an investment with no returns. “50% of your audience would have seen it at a festival. The other 50% would, perhaps, want to come to a theatre, but the whole point is that this 50% is not more than 5,000 people and they will not give me collections worth releasing it in theatres,” the filmmaker says, adding that when he made Neeli Hakki, it was a time when OTT platforms were picking up content without any differentiation of mainstream or arthouse cinema. “As long as it was good enough for a home viewing, they would take it. That changed soon enough,” says Ganesh, whose Neeli Hakki drops on Sun NXT (via OTTplay Premium also) on February 27, 2026.

Neeli Hakki FAQs

Q. Is Neeli Hakki an award-winning film?

A. Yes. Debutant filmmaker Ganesh Hegde was adjudged Best Debut Director at the Karnataka State Film Awards 2020 for Neeli Hakki

Q. Where to watch Neeli Hakki?

A. Following a successful film festival run, Neeli Hakki is coming to Sun NXT (via OTTplay Premium also), on February 27, 2026.

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