After a long stretch of persistence and hard lessons, Ninasam Sathish says he feels he is stepping into a new phase, with his ambitious film, The Rise of Ashoka, releasing this week. “In cinema, you accept both appreciation and disappointment. You give your honest effort, but the result is never in your hands. Victories and failures are inevitable. You put in your effort, but the outcome isn’t always in your control. Still, I carry a strong belief in this film,” he says.
That belief, he explains, translated into total commitment. Sathish reveals he poured in his time, energy, and finances, even turning down several acting offers to stay immersed in the film’s development. “From script discussions to technical decisions, the process demanded my full attention,” he says, further adding that the story, written by TK Dayanand, required a collaborative approach and that he became closely involved in shaping the film’s grounded tone.
Ambition also drove the decision to release the film beyond Kannada. Sathish recalls how the idea drew scepticism. “Before Yash took KGF nationwide, nobody spoke about scale like this. When I said I would take The Rise of Ashoka to Tamil and Telugu audiences, some thought I had lost it. Maybe I have. It is a beautiful madness for cinema,” he says, adding that interest from distributors across markets and Karnataka distribution by KVN Productions strengthened his confidence in the project.
The road to release, however, was not without challenges, including the passing of director Vinod Dhondale and multiple production hurdles. “There were moments people assumed the film would never see the light of day. We treated every obstacle as a challenge,” says Sathish, who prefers to keep the struggles private and let the finished film speak.