Belakina Kannadi, a film made by a Kannada teacher in Belagavi is making waves after it was selected for a film festival in Barcelona, Spain. 

The film was selected by Barcelona Planet Film Festival in the Best Narrative Feature Film category.

Umesh Badiger (31), a Kannada teacher at Kannada Higher Primary School at Markandeya Nagar in Belagavi, decided to spend his summer holidays in 2017 working on the film in an attempt to keep himself busy. Umesh always had an interest in filmmaking and had previously made short films including Koneya Puta (Last Page) focusing on old age homes and the living conditions of elderly persons. 

However, Belakina Kannadi, was his first major film project. It tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who is inspired by lessons of social reform in school and decides to look for a groom for his widowed mother. 

Umesh says he had very little hopes of the film reaching such heights since it was made by an ordinary citizen. "The surprising part is that these festivals have picked up the film in spite of the fact that it has been made by someone like me. But when we think about the story of the film, we had no doubts that it would appeal to filmmakers around the world," he says to TNM. 

While Umesh always had a vision of how the film would look like, it was only in 2017 that he decided to follow through with the idea and shoot the film. The shooting took all of 20 days according to the teacher-turned-filmmaker. "I was encouraged by my friends to turn the script I had written into a film. The post-production and dubbing was done after the shoot and now, the film is with us and yet to be released. We plan to premiere the film in Bengaluru soon," says Umesh. 

The film is 2 hours and 17 minutes long and was produced by Basavaraj Hammini, who will be heading to Barcelona along with Umesh for the screening of the film.