Childhood memories of origami salesmen inspired 'One Cut Two Cut' director

Speaking to IANS, debutante director Vamsidhar Bhogaraju, explained that the story is inspired by childhood memories of those salesmen who would visit schools to sell 'origami' paper craft books to students.

All set for a direct-to-OTT release in February, comedy film 'One Cut, Two Cut', is a much-anticipated Kannada movie of 2022. Speaking to IANS, debutante director Vamsidhar Bhogaraju, explained that the story is inspired by childhood memories of those salesmen who would visit schools to sell 'origami' paper craft books to students.

The movie deals with a bumbling art and craft teacher's first day on the job, and the situations he tackles when four radical social media activists try to take over the school. Apart from lead actor Danish Sait, who essays the role of Gopi, the crafts teacher, the movie has actors Prakash Belavadi, Samyukta Hornad, Vineeth Kumar, and Sampath Maitreya, in pivotal roles. Vamsidhar says he visualised them in the roles at the scripting stage itself.

"I'm quite surprised, in hindsight, myself sometimes how it worked. When we wrote the story, we thought that this role should be played by Prakash Sir (Belavadi), that role is played by Samyukta, and that role is played by Vineeth. Thats how we visualised it. And after we finished writing and approached them, not one of them said no. All of them agreed to work in the film. And we could pretty well see the film before shooting it."

With the Covid pandemic particularly impacting shooting schedules all over, the movie's concept revolving around a school, came as a boon for the director.

"The major chunk of the action takes place in an abandoned school. In fact it's an abandoned township. Also that made our lives much simpler. For the other parts, we went out to shoot after the second lockdown." he said.

However, there were situations that did challenge his patience, he confides. "We started shooting after the first lockdown and then it was a small schedule of 21 days to film the movie. But on day 17 the second lockdown was announced. So we had to wait a good five months to complete the last four days of shoot. That was quite frustrating."

One Cut Two Cut' is the first of three movies from the PRK Productions banner of the late Kannada superstar, Puneet Rajkumar, to be released directly on Amazon Prime Video.

From a marketing professional to stand-up comedian and finally the director's seat for 'One Cut, Two Cut' movie, it's been a nine-year journey for Bhogaraju. He got emotional while recalling his interactions with the late actor fondly known as 'Appu'

"Appu Sir's words of wisdom when we met him for the very first time, and through the entire project, the encouragement is something that's unforgettable. Massive, massive gratitude to Appu Sir and Ashwini ma'am and everyone at PRK Films. 

Everyone is very very helpful. They made our lives so much simpler. They didn't make us hold back for anything. They encouraged us to go tell the story in the best possible way. So my interaction with them was very empowering and it taught us quite a lot."

'One Cut Two Cut' is set to premiere February 3, on Amazon Prime Video. Meanwhile, the debutant director is savouring every moment before jumping into his next project.