Railway Children OTT release date: When and where to watch Prithvi Konanur’s National Award-winning film

Kannada filmmaker Prithvi Konanur’s debut feature film, Railway Children, which won the Silver Lotus Award for Best Child Actor in 2017, and had a great festival run, but abysmal theatrical outing, had, since then, never been made available for public consumption. That is about to change. After rejections from mainstream OTT platforms, who prefer ‘commercial cinema’ over Prithvi’s brand of films, the filmmaker has decided to take it to audiences in his own way.

On August 15, Prithvi is releasing two of his films on his YouTube channel. Yes, on Independence Day, Railway Children and his more recent Hadinelentu will be available to stream for free. In a long social media post, the filmmaker explained that OTT platforms decided against picking his films without watching them, even though they’d received great reviews, for the simple reason that they were not commercially viable. Prithvi wondered if the platforms believe that Kannada audiences cannot handle enlightened content.

All about Railway Children

Railway Children follows two runaway boys, Raju (Parimala) and Jollu (Manohara), who are employed by a local gang to scavenge near the railway station and tracks. Discarded water bottles in good shape that can be illegally recycled are a major draw, but the boys who collect them receive a pittance. What happens when the boys try to make better wages is at the core of the film. It also explores the perils these homeless children encounter in day-to-day life, the vices they pick up and more.

Manohara, who played Jollu won the National Award for Best Child Actor for his performance in the film. The film was inspired by real-life experiences documented by the NGO Sathi and a research book called Rescuing Railway Children.

Hadinelentu, meanwhile, is about the fallout of a sex video gone viral, involving two teenagers, and how society reacts to the development, especially since there are issues of class and caste involved. Prithvi’s third film, Pinki Elli, does not have a release date yet, but now that the filmmaker has made baby steps to make his projects available to discerning audiences, it may not be long off.