Arvind Sastry’s Bisi Bisi Ice Cream brings together a cab driver, an escort and a pimp

Kannada filmmaker Arvind Sastry, who’s made Kahi earlier, reunites with Aravinnd Iyer for a neo-noir film called Bisi Bisi Ice Cream. Currently in post-production, the film will likely be a first half of 2024 release, which the team is still deliberating. In the meantime, they had their first press interaction today, to launch the trailer and talk about the film, which also stars Siri Ravikumar and Gopalkrishna Deshpande.

“Bisi Bisi Ice Cream’s protagonist is a cab driver, but this is not a film about the profession and the issues he faces in carrying out his duties. This is just a job for him. What the film explores is his life; it’s a personal drama. Since he is a cab driver, the film captures a lot of movement within Bengaluru. Siri plays a high-end escort, who, incidentally, does not have a name in the film, while Gopalkrishna Deshpande is Manto, a pimp, who considers himself a businessman. The film presents the adventures and misadventures that occur between these three characters,” explained Arvind at the event. “This is a story of a depressed, lonely heart-broken cab driver who meets this mysterious girl and then has a transformative journey.

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The idea for the film came from the visuals of late night and early morning drives across the city, which he wanted to organically develop into a story. Arvind wanted this to be a quick project, but it eventually took its own time in the making, as the filmmaker needed his leading man Aravinnd to have a physical transformation and lose his fit and fab frame to get into the character of a cab driver. The plan, adds Arvind, is to release the film in theatres in March. The film is just a tad over 2 hours in run time, and has been submitted for censor certification. Bisi Bisi Ice Cream has Arvind fill in as writer, director and editor, all three of which he did in Kahi.

It’s a wrap for the shoot of the Sathish Ninasam-Rukmini Vijayakumar film, Dasara