Abhilash Shetty’s Koli Taal is now streaming on Jio Cinemas

Kannada filmmaker Abhilash Shetty’s directorial debut, Koli Taal, had a successful film festival run, a limited theatrical outing and has been OTT hopping as well. The film, which was initially put on Amazon Prime Video’s store for rental only, then made its way to AppleTV+ and is now finally on a platform where one can stream it for free. The 85-minute film is now available on Jio Cinemas.

Getting his film on an OTT platform, though, was not an easy task for Abhilash, who, at the time, had rued, “Forget theatres, even OTT platforms do not show interest in films that have been in the festival circuit, irrespective of the accolades won. Their focus continues to be star-driven projects, even if the content is not great. Audiences also do not watch content-rich cinema in theatres; there they want a ‘paisa-vasool commercial entertainer’. Films like mine should head to an OTT platform after the festival run, even if they don’t take it as an exclusive deal, at least if they can give us a pay-per-view option is also fine. What is happening right now is that there are national award winning Kannada films, which end up on a hard disk after the festival run, as they don’t get a theatrical, or, an OTT release. I want to make sure that my film does not have that fate. The objective of making a film is for people to see it.”

Koli Taal, which stars Abhilash, Prabhakar Kunder and Radha Ramachander in main roles, follows an elderly couple in a remote village in Sagara, who have got word that their grandson is set to visit them after many years. Excited, they decide that his favourite chicken curry should be served during his visit, but when the time comes to make the same, the rooster they’d earmarked for it goes missing. The grandfather is sure that some miscreants took the rooster and tries to piece together clues about its disappearance. The tale is based on Abhilash’s experiences of visiting his grandparents in Sagara.