Will Keerti's jadoo work?

Wanted: Some Kirti Reddy jadoo!

The actress maintained a low profile for a year at her hometown in Bangalore, post bombing of her debut Hindi film, Tera Jadoo Chal Gayaa, opposite Abhishek Bachchan.

But now, the starlet is all set for a second coming in Rajiv Rai's Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat.

Keerti stars opposite three actors (Sunil Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani, Arjun Rampal), and this is obviously going to be her last shot at stardom, at least for a while.

Incidentally, the film was shot almost a year ago. But Rai has now scheduled a July release.

Meanwhile, Keerti is getting ready for it by colouring and highlighting her hair to the right shades of chestnut and golden brown, working out regularly at her favourite gym, Figurine Fitness, and being seen at all the right places around Bangalore and Bombay.

Kirti has already announced her intention to switch to Hindi films permanently, forgoing Tamil and Telugu films.

What, one wonders, will she do if this film doesn’t do well?

And the award goes to...

The Special Advisory Committee, constituted by the Karnataka Government to judge the Kannada film awards this year, came up with an interesting choice for best actor: H G Dattatreya for his performance as Hasanabba in Munnudi.

"I never dreamt I would win the best actor award some day," says a surprised Dattatreya. "I did think, of course, that the film would win awards. Never expected that I would win this great personal honour myself."

Incidentally, this middle-aged actor won the National Award for best supporting actor last year.

The best actress award went to 20-year-old Anu Prabhakar, for her performance in Shaapa (curse).

The film, produced by psychiatrist and filmmaker Ashok Patil, is about a mentally disturbed young man and his romance with a young doctor, played by Prabhakar. For the young heroine, less than two years old in the industry, this was, she readily admits, a dream come true.

On a more serious note, filmmaker M S Sathyu, who led the committee, expressed deep concern about the deterioration of the Kannada cinema over the last year. According to him, of the 25 films the committee viewed, 15 were mindless, substandard and full of unnecessary violence. He regretted this trend towards what he described as Fascist films.

A diamond crown for a birthday!

This week, two middle-aged Kannada stars celebrated their birthdays.

Ravichandran had a quiet celebration with the usual kind of star bash for family, friends, and hangers-on.

The actor is visibly ageing, balding and has a middle-aged spread, but his movies are still popular, primarily because they are characterised by a certain gloss, pizzazz and style typical of the star.

Actor-turned-politician Ambareesh is in a totally different boat. He is no longer a popular film star, works on very few films, has become overweight and seems more preoccupied by his political career as a Congress MP.

Not that that stopped him from going all out to celebrate his birthday in a big way.

He held a huge public function in Davanagere, where the crowds ran amok. More disturbingly, the mediapersons invited by the star from Bangalore, were roughed up by policemen. All for doing their job: taking pictures of a diamond crown given to Ambareesh by his fans.

Real life drama

Earlier this week, Tamil superstars Murali and Sharat Kumar narrowly missed being roughed up by angry villagers in Karnataka, when they were shooting for Samudram.

The location was a small temple on the banks of the river Cauvery in the Mandya district of Karnataka.

The unit wanted to shoot some scenes in the river, when they spotted four youths swimming in it. With typical filmi high-handedness, they promptly shooed them out of the water and began shooting their river scenes.

That was that, they thought.

But barely half an hour later, the young men returned, with several villagers in tow, armed with sickles, sticks and stones. The angry villagers attacked the 50-member film unit and chased them away from the river bank.

While the superstars managed to avoid injury, the rest of the unit was not so lucky. Apparently, 30 of them were injured. Some, like assistant director Krishna Moha, had to be admitted to a hospital in Mysore. The others made do with first aid.

The villagers, obviously, resented being chased away from their own territory by the film unit. The old Tamil-Kannada animosity might have been at play, too, as the region was actually in the Cauvery basin, and the unit was from Tamil Nadu.

The stars themselves were very surprised by the attack. "We have filmed in that spot before quite well, so we did not expect any kind of trouble," said a visibly distressed Murali.

Murali was originally a child star from the Kannada cinema. He was known as Arjun and acted in Putani Agents 1-2-3 over two decades ago.