Exclusive! Shubhamangala is a family entertainer about five love stories that play out at a wedding, says director Santhosh Gopal

Award-winning short film maker Santhosh Gopal wrote and directed his debut feature prior to the pandemic. He premiered it at the 2020 Bengaluru International Film Festival in early March and was all set to release it in theatres when the first lockdown was announced. Like many other independent, small-time filmmakers, Santhosh too got pulled into the long queue of those waiting to bring their stories to audiences. Finding the right window to present the film in theatres was a ginormous task and when he finally chose October 14 as the D-day, he reckoned it was a good bet – it was two weeks after Kantara and two weeks before Gandhada Gudi.

The phenomenal box office reception of Rishab Shetty’s Kantara, though, has changed all these equations, and even as Santhosh struggles to get his film a decent number of screens this weekend, he is hopeful that Kannada audiences will recognize the value of a good family entertainer and watch Shubhamanagala too.

The film, which boasts a massive ensemble cast of close to 35 artistes, including Rakesh Maiya, Meghana Gaonkar, Hitha Chandrashekar, Aruna Balraj, Babu Hirannaiah, Gopalkrishna Deshpande and Siddhaartha Maadhyamika, among others, is about a bunch of events that play out at a wedding hall. “I wrote Shubhamangala based on an idea that I had about what would happen if a groom’s ex-girlfriend asks him to marry her moments before he is set to wed someone else. This is also what you see in the trailer of the film, wherein Sidhaartha is all set to marry Hitha’s character, when Meghana walks in and asks if he’d rather wed her. While the crux of the film revolves around this plot point, Shubhamangala, in essence, is about five different love stories, all of which play out at this wedding hall. There’s young love, unrequited love, and lust too,” explains the debutant filmmaker.

Produced by Avyakta Films as a crowdfunded project, Shubhamangala, gets its title from a popular Puttanna Kanagal film. The film has cinematography by Rakesh B Raj and music by Judah Sandhy.