Rishab Shetty’s Kantara to clash with Dhruva Sarja’s Martin at the box office

Last evening, Hombale Films, the makers of the period drama Kantara, announced the film’s release. The Rishab Shetty directorial, which has him in the lead as well, will open in theatres on September 30. Hombale Films took to their social media handles and wrote, “This Dasara, get ready to be dazzled & transported into a new universe of #Kantara.”

Interestingly, Kantara has now set up a box office clash with another biggie, Action Prince Dhruva Sarja’s AP Arjun directorial Martin, which had announced September 30 as its date with audiences a long time ago. Considering that producer Uday K Mehta had announced his film way back, it was expected that Martin would not have competition from other big Kannada films. But that changes now. When news of the box office clash came out, fans took to social media and said that it was not a clash, since both films belong to different genres and will have their own dedicated set of audiences.

Kantara is a village backdrop film, an ecological drama about the conflict between humanity and nature where the police can be seen condemning the customs of locals in the teaser, sparking a feud between locals and the cops.

The film also stars Sapthami Gowda, Kishore, Pramod Shetty and Achyuth Kumar in pivotal roles, has music by B Ajaneesh Loknath and cinematography by Arvind S Kashyap. The film title has a tagline calling it a dhanta kathe or a legend. While the title itself has mystery in it, it has Sankrit origins and has been used in Kannada too. It is used in Yakshagana too, where they call a very mysterious forest as Kantara. The shooting of the baffling timberland has been done in Keradi village and in the coastal parts of Karnataka, which also has an element of sports attached with it.