Yuddhakaanda Chapter 2 director Pavan Bhat: ‘No one cares about the mental agony victims and their families undergo’

Young filmmaker Pavan Bhat made his debut with a comic take on the life of a movie editor, Cutting Shop, which he co-wrote with his brother Praveen and had the latter in the lead. When he began planning his next, Pavan did not have a plan in place about the genre he wanted to attempt, but as someone who follows the news keenly, he often came across reports of cases of justice being delayed, like, for instance, Nirbhaya, which takes years to reach some sort of conclusion.

Pavan Bhat: Victims live with the trauma every day of the years it takes to get justice

“What happens is that the general public follows such cases, say, from how it began, and then lose interest until the judgement comes several years later. It got me thinking about the victims and their next of kin. We return to the case after 5-7 years, but they live with it every day. The mental agony they suffer is not something anyone pays attention to. All that we look at is what happened and how did it end. No media invests time in checking in on the well-being of the family every now and then. Their mental health is no one’s concern and that struck me, which became the starting point for the story of Yuddhakaanda Chapter 2,” explains the filmmaker.

Yuddhakaanda Chapter 2 was produced by Krishna Ajai Rao, who'd earlier produced Krishna Leela , and is popularly known for romantic films like Krishnan Love Story , Krishnan Marriage Story , etc. Ajai also played the lead, as an advocate, Bharath, who takes up a case that seems like a no-brainer open and shut, wherein a young mother, Niveditha (Archana Jois) shoots to death the man who viciously violated her child, in the court premises. Is Niveditha a stone-cold killer or is she a victim of the system? Can Bharath get Niveditha the justice she’d been looking for? These are the questions that Pavan’s film answers.

Released in theatres on April 18, the film received largely positive reviews and has been holding on to several screens/shows, despite the onslaught of big-ticket releases from other languages. Details about Yuddhakaanda’s post-theatrical rights are yet to be revealed