Natesh Hegde’s Pedro in competition at Melbourne Fest; Gopal Hegde for best actor

Debutant filmmaker Natesh Hegde’s first full-length feature, Pedro, has been doing the rounds of international film festivals across the world since its Busan premiere last year. The film, which has Natesh’s father Gopal Hegde in the title role, has been produced by filmmaker-actor Rishab Shetty. Both Rishab and Natesh have been promising that the much-acclaimed film will be brought to audiences soon, but it’s not done with the festival circuit yet.

The film is currently in competition at the Indian Film Festival (IFFM) of Melbourne in the Best Indie Film section. Other nominees in this category include Boomba Ride (Mishing), Dug Dug (Hindi), Jaggi (Punjabi), Once Upon A Time in Calcutta (Bengali), Shankar’s Fairies (Hindi), Shoebox (Hindi) and Fairy Folk (Hindi, English). The winner will be announced on August 14 at the Palais Theatre, Melbourne at the IFFM Award night.

But that’s not the only category that the film is in competition. Gopal is nominated in the Best Actor category along with Abhishek Bachchan (Dasvi - Hindi), Rajkummar Rao (Badhai Do - Hindi), Ramnish Chaudhary (Jaggi – Punjabi), Ranveer Singh (83 – Hindi), Suriya (Jai Bhim – Tamil), Tovino Thomas (Minnal Murali – Malayalam), Vicky Kaushal (Sardhar Udham – Hindi). Natesh took to social media to announce the same, writing, “Mr.Pedro aka Gopal Hegde nominated for Best Actor at Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2022. Rishab Shetty look at this! your favourite actor got another nomination for his performance. Along with some biggies of industries.”

The official synopsis of the film reads, “In a remote village in Southern India, Pedro, an outcast and a drunk, accidentally kills a cow and sets off a revelatory chain of events that pit him against the entire community.” Beside Gopal, the film also stars Ramakrishna Bhat Dundi and Raj B Shetty, among others. At the Pingyao International Festival, Natesh had been adjudged Best Director for Pedro, and yet, under mysterious circumstances it was not included at the Bengaluru International Film Festival.