PremiumRaghu Dixit gets teary-eyed as audiences fail to support Orchestra, Mysuru!
The composer, who has co-produced the film, says that after a promising start with the premieres in Mysuru and Bengaluru, on the day it really mattered, no one turned up to see it.
Last Updated: 08.53 PM, Jan 16, 2023
Orchestra, Mysuru! is a film that a bunch of passionate Mysureans made about the orchestra culture in the city they grew up in. Musician Raghu Dixit, who had been approached for an acting gig in the film, went on to join the team as composer and producer too. It’s a film that most of them spent the last five years on and it is finally in theatres. Presented by Daali Dhananjaya, who has also written all the songs in the film, Orchestra, Mysuru! opened in theatres on September 12 as a Sankranti release.
Traditionally, Kannada films do not make a beeline for the harvest festival holiday because biggies from Telugu and Tamil tend to swamp the market. Yet, this time around, the team decided to take a gamble, as they were confident about the content they had in hand. Unfortunately, for them, despite the good buzz that the trailer and songs had created and some positive word of mouth feedback too following the release, Orchestra, Mysuru! has not made much of a dent at the box office.
Disappointed with the turnout, Raghu had taken to social media in a video message wherein he said, “When we had a pre-release event in Mysuru with a free concert by my band, thousands turned up for the event and we thought if all of them come to see the film as well, we are sorted. But on the day when it really mattered – release day – there was no one in the theatres, either in Mysuru or Bengaluru.”
Raghu added, “For the longest time, people used to ask why no Kannada films release during Sankranti, taunting filmmakers with questions as to whether we don’t have the guts to take on big movies from other industries. Now that we have taken the initiative, where are these social media activists in supporting a Kannada film at the box office?”
The bigger question, of course, he said, is whether Kannada audiences only want to see the same old formulaic commercial films and A-list heroes only. “Should newcomers not attempt to make cinema?” he asks and extends a teary-eyed request to people to watch the film in theatres.