Exclusive! Shivarajkumar to back children’s film based on THIS bestselling Japanese novel

Actor-filmmaker MG Srinivas is looking at a long association with Century Star Shivarajkumar. He had announced that his film Ghost, with the Kannada star in the lead, was the first in a proposed Srinivas Cinematic Universe (SCU) that marries the franchise with his Birbal movies. In a conversation with OTTplay, Srinivas had said that he was looking at releasing Birbal 2 by mid-2024 and announcing either Ghost 2 or the Dalavaayi Mudanna spin-off in July, for Shivarajkumar’s birthday. But those are not the only immediate projects that the filmmaker is looking at.

Srinivas is committed to making a film for Shivarajkumar’s home banner Geetha Pictures. This, he says, is a pet project for the actor’s wife Geetha Shivarajkumar, who has asked Srinivas to adapt a Japanese novel that she loves. A source tells us that Geetha wants to make a film based on the bestselling novel Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window, an autobiographical memoir by Japanese television personality and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. The book explores the values of the unconventional education that Tetsuko received during World War II at Tomoe Gakuen, an elementary school in Tokyo, which was founded by educator Sosaku Kobayashi.

Exclusive | Ghost, Birbal 2 director MG Srinivas to adapt a Japanese children's novel for Geetha Pictures 

Tetsuko had originally written about her experiences at Tomoe Gakuen as a series of articles for a magazine, which were then collated and published as a book that went on to make Japanese publishing history, selling more than 5 million copies in record time. Over the years, the book has been translated in multiple languages, including Kannada. In an earlier conversation with OTTplay, Srinivas had said that the film version will be along the lines of something like Taare Zameen Par “with the same endearing innocence and child artistes in principal roles”.