Vanilla sees Jayatheertha exploring capnophobia

Director Jayatheertha is testing the waters of a genre new to him, in his next thriller titled, Vanilla.

“Content-wise, Beautiful Manasugalu was an emotional subject with a social message. My next film, Vanilla is a murder mystery thriller, a genre I'm attempting for the first time. In fact, after I watched the first copy, I asked myself, did I really do this film? Vanilla will be a lot different from my earlier work, and I want to prepare the audience for that,” Jayatheertha shares.

Furthering elaborating on the difference, the Kannada director says, “Beautiful Manasugalu was dialogue, performance, and expression oriented, whereas in Vanilla, facts become important when told through the dialogues.” 

“Time is an important factor for the plot. The film also explores a message of social concern. The audience should have an eye for detail from start to end, in order to understand the subject better. This concept is new to me and I took a whole year to write the script. I have watched almost all kinds of thriller films made in Bollywood, Hollywood and Korea, and worked upon how to bring such subjects to our cinema. I have tried a different kind of narration for Vanilla, and I am eager to know how people will accept or react to this,” he says, adding that the filmmaking style will be contemporary.  

The film also throws light upon capnophobia--a condition where a person who gets scared of anything to do with smoke and smoking. “This condition is rarely explored in cinema. The unique and fresh role is being played by actor Swathi Konde. Except for a 1933 release film titled 39 Steps, that had a similar character (though not directly related to capnophobia), this is relatively new,” he adds.

The film has fresh faces--Avinash and Swathi Konde--playing the lead roles. Ask him if it would help this film, to have new faces and he says, “Yes, it works because established faces come with audience expectations. Wherein newcomers add freshness to the story.”

He informs us that the hero is trained by Mandya Ramesh and displays promising talent, while Swati has already proved her mettle with Beautiful Manasugalu, in which she played an important character.

The film also features Pavana and Ravi Shankar Gowda in crucial roles, along with Giri and Rahman amongst others.“A few theatre artistes are also part of the cast. These are actors who are coming on screen for the first time,” he says.

Vanilla has music by BJ Bharath and cinematography by Kiran Hampapura.