Vijay Raghavendra’s psychological thriller Savitri to get a direct-to-YouTube release

At 5.12 pm this evening, the first-ever direct-to-YouTube release of a Kannada film will happen when director S Dinesh’s psychological horror thriller Savitri drops on the official channel of SRS Media Vision. Starring Vijay Raghavendra, Prakash Belawadi and Tara in the lead, the film explores how children are influenced by the environments they are exposed to, especially when there is discord in the family.

Producer Prashant Kumar Heelalige had made the film with the intention of making it a theatrical venture and then selling the digital and satellite rights. The film, which had premiered at the Bengaluru International Film Festival, had received good response. However, despite his best efforts over the last two years, he was not able to make a favourable business deal. He has now sold the digital rights of the film to SRS Media Vision, a YouTube channel dedicated to classic Kannada cinema, which boasts over 3.5 million subscribers. The producer had to sell the digital rights at the best price he got, but has held on to the satellite rights. The film will premiere at 5.12 pm today.

Prashant, though, is not entirely disheartened by this turn of events and is hopeful of bringing his next production to theatres. Meanwhile, the film’s director Dinesh says that he was unaware of the digital rights sale until a day ago and says that he had tried his best to convince Prashant to wait a tad longer in the hope of securing a better deal for the film. The filmmaker adds that it is saddening that a film that was well received at festivals struggled to find takers, both for theatrical and OTT rights.