Meet Brinda Muralidhar – an all rounder in Film Making!
Brinda comes from a family of theatre artists and filmmakers from Mysore, India. Her father – Ramachandra Rao was a writer and director of stage plays, whose inspiration was his older brother, M.V.Narayana Rao – a celebrated theatre and cinema artist, and film producer from 1930s to 1960s. His team was instrumental in discovering many artists, who went on become stars in the Kannada film industry. Her father, an outstanding story teller, often took a guy from the neighbourhood, trained, moulded and transformed him to play a series of amazing characters on stage. Creating vivid imagery by words and intonation, her father would gather kids in the neighbourhood, telling stories and tales.
Growing up in this environment, Brinda, in her teens, became involved in a progressive theatre group Samudaya, founded by Mr. Prasanna, (former Principal, National School of Drama, Delhi). Prasanna brought many literary giants, writers, dramatists, directors together and started a theatre movement in Karnataka. In Samudaya she met and married fellow theatre enthusiast Gunny Muralidhar.
She was a drama artist at All India Radio, Mysore and over the years, claims quite a few accolades. With over 25 years of acting experience in mainstream theatre in India as well as Canada, Brinda has worked with award winning writers, directors such as S.Ramesh, CGK (C.G.Krishnaswamy), Dr. Sindhuvalli Ananthmoorthy (SAM), Dr. Lingadevaru Halemane, Janardhan (Janni) current Director of Rangayana, Mysore, to name a few
- Along with Gunny, she is the co-founder and Director of not-for-profit organization KalaaRanga Performing Arts, and has written and directed 14 stage productions in Kannada, English, Hindi, ranging from quirky one-act plays to riveting dramas to choreographed Bollywood Musicals. Each presentation in a variety of style and genre has earned her tremendous appreciation from the Greater Toronto Area and North American audiences.
In 2003, Brinda achieved professional artistic grade in Canada (ACTRA member). In 2006, Brinda began to have a fascination for Cinema and started writing scripts. She has worked for several years with various production companies and created commercials, short films and documentaries.
She started her film production company 1CanMedia Creations with a vision to produce meaningful cinema, documentaries, television shows, web-series and theatre presentations. She also loves editing, the final artistic task in a cinema that puts together the film. She has worked as Assistant Director, done casting, production design, production management, costume and the list goes on. She has produced and directed a documentary in 2012 about the journey of Kannada Sangha Toronto from its inception. In December 2013 began the evolution of KNOT NOT!
It is Brinda’s fervent endeavour to discover local talent and provide them with a platform, and showcase their artistry to a larger audience.
“As a story teller my main motto is to entertain the audience, at the same time, trigger their thought process. I want my audience to come to the auditorium anticipating to be entertained, and when they leave, they should feel their time was well spent. ” – Brinda Muralidhar
These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life.
Brinda says, performing arts like Drama and Cinema are fundamentally for entertainment, and they leave a profound impact on the audience. If Ramayana and Mahabharata remained as literature, I don’t believe they would have reached so many people or become so popular and revered for thousands of years, she says. Because these epics were told through dramatization, the common man was able to understand them, appreciate the value in them, and pass them on to the next generation, she adds.
What was your biggest challenge?
My biggest challenge was to make a complex story offer an entertaining time to the audience. I wanted my story to make the audience participate in it, rather than be sucked by it. Probably my love for Bertolt Brecht’s works has great influence on my writing too. Knot Not! is filled with moments that are thought provoking while fun inducing, anger evoking at the same time hilarious.
What makes the film meaningful?
Knot Not! it is a story that needs to be told over and over again as long as marriages do happen wherever in the world! Its global resonance, relevance, quirky yet relatable characters, packaged in a tastefully funny way will make the film worthwhile and meaningful to the audience.
Why was it so important to tell this story?
Knot Not! is not just about happy endings, it is about stopping the bad beginnings. I believe good films offer a great opportunity to hold a mirror to the society, to ask questions and to offer atleast one solution from the point of view of the writer. Coming from a big joint family, I have seen very many challenges that families face, to stay together. Somehow, a tiny civic lesson I learnt while I was in fifth grade has stayed with me till today that ‘the family is the fundamental unit of society’. That’s such a powerful statement. Knot Not! reflects the values that my family has imbibed in me. I could not have taken up any other subject for my first film. The central subject of Knot Not! is something that has distressed me for a long time. I have witnessed similar stories in my own circles. While there are many families that are flourishing happily, in a myriad of ways many families are crumbling. Knot Not! has one such theme that has allowed me to explore two important aspects: ‘why so?’ and ‘now what?’.
