On The Cards For Four Decades, Kannada Film Industry To Get Its Own Film City In Bengaluru; All You Should Know

With the highest number of national awards, renewed interest in Kannada cinema from audiences and filmmakers across the country, and now the announcement of a film city in Bengaluru, the year 2019 seems to be a good one for ‘Sandalwood’.

A four-decade old dream of Sandalwood to have its own film city will soon be reality as Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwathanarayan announced the setting up of one in Bengaluru itself. This puts an end to the debate over the different locations that were contenders to host the mega venture.

At an event to posthumously honour senior actor Ambareesh with the 2019 Padmabhushan Dr B Sarojadevi, National award, Ashwathanarayan said that the government had already inspected a few locations in the city and the work to build the film city would take off at the earliest, as reported by Udayavani.

This brings an end to the protest by environmentalists against the proposed film city at the Roerich and Devika Rani Roerich Estate at Tataguni as was proposed by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa earlier this year.

The project has been on the cards for four decades now. The earliest effort to have a film city for Sandalwood was made by Ramakrishna Hegde during his tenure as CM in the 80s. Hegde had allocated around 400 acres at Hesaraghatta to this project that never took off.

But recent governments have been moving it from one location to another to suit their political interests. While Siddaramaiah, during his tenure as chief minister, had sanctioned it to Himmavu in Varuna, his son Yathindra’s constituency, H D Kumaraswamy had proposed its construction at Ramanagara, which is his wife Anitha Kumaraswamy’s constituency.

The recent was Yediyurappa’s plans to have it at Tataguni, an estate that belonged to artist Svetoslav Roerich whose actress wife Devika Rani was hailed as the ‘first lady of Indian Cinema’. She had given it to the state government.

This estate spanning around 500 acres is home to a range of wild animals, is considered as the only lung space on the outskirts of an overcrowded Bengaluru, and is also an elephant corridor.

Plans to build a film city on such a crucial green stretch of the region got the government serious flak.

Mysuru too had been a film city contender. At a cost of around Rs 380 crore, the proposed film city in Mysuru was to be set up on a 110-acre plot in Nanjangud.

But the coalition government had shifted the location to Ramanagara. Mysuru was back in the race earlier this year after the Roerich estate plan ran into trouble. But the deputy CM’s announcement has clarified that it will now be in Bengaluru and that many a big company has already expressed interest for its construction.