lucia, a psychological thriller from the Sandalwood, is the first Kannada film to enter Pakistan. The film, written and directed by Pawan Kumar with Satish Ninasam and Sruthi Hariharan released in February 2013, enthralled Karachi audience on Saturday.
According to lucia director Pawan Kumar, the film screening in Pakistan was possible because of facebook dissemination and popularity. He said, “This is the first ever screening of a Kannada film in Pakistan. The facebook page has helped lucia reach Karachi in Pakistan. I was more than happy to send my film there.”
lucia, a people-funded new wave film, has been screened in festivals in london, Zurich, Paris and many cities in the US, Singapore and Australia. The film was remade in Tamil as Enakkul Oruvan starring Siddharth and Deepa Sannidhi. Actor Siddharth himself expressed his interest in signing for the lead role in the remake after watching lucia. It was also among the films shortlisted by the FFI to become India’s submission for Academy Award for Best Foreign language Film for the year 2013.
According to Pawan Kumar, it was a challenge to send the copy of the film as there was no courier to Karachi. He said, “Thanks to technology. I transferred the entire film via dropbox and downloaded it there.” The director had also interacted with the audience after the screening through Skype. Pawan Kumar says technology helped bridge the gap for his film.
The story starts with Nikki who hails from a village near Mandya working as an usher in a Bengaluru movie theatre owned by Shankranna (Achyuth Kumar). Nikki suffers from insomnia and yearns for a companion. On one of his sleepless nights, Nikki is contacted by a drug dealer who gives him lucia pills as a solution to his sleeping problems. This drug is said to have the capability to help one dream the life they want but has the side-effect, that on discontinuation the same dreams shall turn into a nightmare.
With the help of the lucia pills, Nikki starts seeing himself as a successful actor called Nikhil surrounded by people he knows in the real world. Film actor Nikhil’s life is depicted in black-and-white. Shankranna, the theatre owner where Nikki works, had starred in a film in his youth funded by the leader of the goons, who now wants Shankranna to sign off his theatre for his debt.
More events from the dream are followed by similar events in reality as Nikki falls in love with Shwetha (Sruthi Hariharan) who is a model in the dream and a waitress in the reality. The story goes on and lucia was a hit in Kannada film industry.
Pawan Kumar is working on his next film which is called C10H14N2, on the tobacco industry. lucia is notable for its use of crowdfunding technique. It was funded by 110 investors who contributed to the project through a facebook page and a blog run by director-actor Pawan Kumar. It was the first Kannada movie to bypass the traditional film financing mode.