Vijayanand on OTT: Vijay Sankeshwar biopic likely to drop on THIS date

This Friday, the first-ever biopic from Karnataka, Vijayanand, hits theatres. Directed by Rishika Sharma, the film follows the life of Hubballi-based Padma Shri Vijay Sankeshwar, as he goes about setting up his popular logistics firm, Vijayanand Roadlines Ltd (VRL). The film, which is a debut production venture for VRL Film Productions, is a pan-India release in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi.

The film follows Vijay’s humble beginnings with just one truck to operating a fleet of over 5,000 vehicles, and then diversifying into the media business also, launching a Kannada daily, Vijaya Karnataka first, which soon became the leading vernacular newspaper in the state, followed by an English daily, Vijay Times too. The transport and media baron sold his newspapers to the Times of India group, and then launched new ventures, Digvijay TV and the Kannada daily Vijayawani. It was rumoured at one point that the group, run by Vijay and his son Anand Sankeshwar, was also looking at getting into the airline business. With the film, the duo claim that it will be an accurate depiction of how they set up and ran their logistics and media businesses.

Rishika, whose claim to fame is the horror flick Trunk, reunites with the film’s leading man, Nihal Rajput for Vijayanand. He plays Vijay Sankeshwar, while Brahmagantu fame Bharath Bopanna fills in as his son Anand. Veteran actor Anant Nag will be seen as Vijay’s father, BG Sankeshwar. The film’s ensemble cast also includes Siri Prahlad, Archana Kottige, V Ravichandran, Shine Shetty, Dayal Padmanabhan, Prakash Belawadi, Vinaya Prasad and Rajesh Nataranga, among many others. A Gopi Sundar musical, the digital rights of the film have been picked up by Amazon Prime Video. It is being reported that the streamer has struck a 30-days from release deal with the team. As such, Vijayanand is likely to begin streaming on the platform as early as January 13, 2023, say industry trackers.