Four months after filmmaker Natesh Hegde’s Vagachipani (Tiger’s Pond) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, the Indian drama has reached a new audience: Globally acclaimed filmmaker Jafar Panahi.
Palme d’Or winner Jafar Panahi meets Natesh Hegde, director of Anurag Kashyap-backed Tiger’s Pond, expresses desire to watch the film
Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who recently won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for It Was Just An Accident, met Natesh Hegde at the ongoing Sydney Film Festival and discussed Tiger’s Pond, produced by Anurag Kashyap.
Panahi, who had heard about the film when it made a splash at the Berlin Film Festival‘s Forum strand in February, told Hegde that he was interested in watching the Kannada-language dark crime drama.
“It was great to meet Mr Jafar Panahi here in Sydney. He had heard about our film after the screening, and has asked for it to watch,” said Hegde.
“I started making films because of Abbas Kiarostami’s Close up. Abbas passed away before I made my first film. The desire to show my film to Abbas isn’t possible, but after meeting Jafar Panahi, a friend and student of Abbas, I felt like meeting a senior student from the same college. He’s someone whose films I have always looked up to, and I’ll be thrilled if he likes Tiger’s Pond. Now, I am waiting for his response,” the director added.
Before this, Hegde’s 2021 drama Pedro was in the New Currents competition at the Busan International Film Festival in 2021 and Tigers Pond participated in the festival’s Asian Project Market in 2022.
Kashyap, who has previously worked on titles like Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Sacred Games (2018), and Kennedy, produced the film along with Ranjan Singh of Flip Films and Singapore-based producer Jeremy Chua.
Tiger’s Pond follows the story of a cutthroat businessman of feudal heritage, who sets out to manipulate a local election—but his designs run up against the defiance of a street-smart, outcast villager.
The film stars Dileesh Pothan, Achyut Kumar, Natesh, Gopal Hegde, Sumitra, Bindu Raxidi, Jahanghir MS and Nagaraj Hegde.
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