'5ters'- the film teaches children about global warming

Their first effort, a children’s fantasy and adventure film, created and developed completely in Bangalore, has just hit the screens.

“5ters is different from the typical films made for children in India. You either have completely animated films, usually based on mythology, or you have offbeat films that are made for awards and never hit the screens. We don’t have films for children in India at all,” says Vijayalakshmi NS, storywriter and associate director of 5ters, that hit the screens last Friday.

This film narrates the story of five children, who are out there to help restore the balance between the creator and destroyer in nature. “It is made like some of the fantasy films in the West, but we’re also trying to convey a message through the twins — Creator and Destroyer — which is the ill-effect of global warming,” says Vijayalakshmi.

The film is directed by first time director G Venugopal, who believes that India can surpass the West when it comes to fantasy films and computer graphics. “We’re pioneers in this field. In 1984, when most of the world was just happy with feature films, we had a 3D film in Chota Chetan,” says he.

Venugopal adds that it is the star obsession in the film industries in India which has made producers shy away from investing in this genre.

“Back in ’80s, someone was willing to spend crores of rupees for a film like Chota Chetan. But it was not followed through. No other producer has been adventurous enough since,” he points out.

5ters has been made with a budget that is almost 1/100th of most big fantasy productions in Hollywood. “We wanted to prove that we can make a good film with minimal resources in India. People go outside India for graphics, when we’ve enough talent out here. We’ve shot our film mostly in a shed with a green wall and created most of the adventure scenes using 3D characters,” says Vijayalakshmi.

The film has the very talented character actor from Sandalwood, Avinash, playing the lead. “He impressed us with his acting in Chandramukhi. After that, we were convinced that only he can play the calm and composed creator and the greedy destroyer with equal élan,” says Venugopal.

The film is releasing in Hindi first and will later be dubbed into Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam for a later release.

“We wanted to have a nationwide reach, which was why we made it in Hindi. We are dubbing it in other languages too. Unfortunately, the laws in Karnataka don’t allow us to dub films into Kannada. We might be a team of Bangaloreans, but our film will not be releasing in Kannada,” tells Vijayalakshmi, who believes that with the right investment, they can make bigger films.