Mainstream Kannada cinema has avoided the caste issue. It was important for filmmaker Bheemrao P to ensure that his debut project didn’t get nerfed. While promoting his film, Hebbuli Cut, he called the film a gentle story about a boy’s dream of getting a fancy haircut. The film is more than that, but Bheemrao wanted to create buzz around his film before anything else.
“The moment you mention Ambedkarism, a section of people will distance themselves from your film. That is why I emphasised the fact that my film was a ‘commercially compelling social drama’,” he tells The Hindu.
Released in theatres on July 4, 2025, Hebbuli Cut created a buzz among a small audience, mostly comprising critics and niche content followers. The film has seen a surge in acceptance since its recent release on the OTT platform Sun NXT. I see people writing long posts about my film on social media. It is being discussed on several forums,” says the director.
Hebbuli Cut, set in Chandrabandha village near the North Karnataka-Telangana border, tells the story of a schoolboy Vinay (Mounesh Nataranga) who is not spared from the harsh reality of his surroundings. The conflict of the film revolves around Vinay’s desire to have a hairstyle similar to that of Superstar Sudeep from the 2017 action thriller Hebbuli. However, his dream is shattered by social prejudice.
Bheemrao was impressed by Dr. Rajkumar’s hairstyle in the 1979 action drama Nanobba Kalla. The film became the starting point for the Hebbuli cut, but he needed a recent phenomenon to attract a mainstream audience. It was Sudeep’s hairstyle in Hebbuli that became an integral part of the script. In 2017, the hairstyle was a craze among students. So much so that a disgruntled Bagalkot principal wrote a letter to a salon asking them to avoid styling students’ hair in this way.
Also read: Karnataka school principal asks salon owner to give up Hebbuli Hairdressing to students
Back then, many probably couldn’t have imagined a scenario where a boy would be denied a trendy haircut because of the family he belonged to. “Even today, people are not comfortable talking about inequality,” laments Bheemrao. “Many people, including those from my circle, liked the Hebbuli cut. But they were not ready to accept the presence of unfair prejudice in society,” he says.
“My film is based on a real incident. Maybe those who live in big cities may not be aware of such injustice faced by people from lower castes,” he says, adding that the recent incident in Gujarat is a timely confirmation of his story.
It was widely reported that decades of prejudice ended when Kriti Chauhan became the first Dalit to enter a barber shop in Alawada village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district. For generations, around 300-odd Dalits had gone elsewhere for grooming because local barbers in their village denied services.
Still from the ‘hebbuli cut’. | Photo credit: Special arrangement
Bheemrao still finds his voice as a filmmaker. He focuses on films that address societal issues. For over a decade, filmmakers like Pa. Ranjit and Mari Selvaraj have sparked a movement in Tamil cinema with films that challenged caste-based discrimination. “Pa. Ranjit is very aggressive in the way he conveys his distaste for society. Mari Selvaraj deals with serious topics in an engaging way. I prefer Mari’s films over Ranjith’s,” he believes.
He is also a fan of Marathi filmmaker Nagaraj Manjule. “His films don’t try to portray inequality, yet they move you. That speaks to his caliber. I loved his Fandriya (2014). I could relate to the struggle of a divided teenager against societal expectations. The final scene where he throws a stone at the camera, thus breaking the fourth wall, is the director’s rebellion against a prejudiced world. That had a big impact on me,” he explains.
Bheemrao prefers exciting stories based on important subjects. “Earlier, some Kannada films on caste used melodrama to drive home the message. That kind of approach doesn’t work with the audience.”
Bheemrao’s approach to mixing entertainment with a message is evident in the beautifully shot song, Haadu hagalalle, in Hebbuli Cut.“The song reveals the feelings of a boy who is in love with an upper caste girl. This is my way of supporting secularism as he dreams of living happily with the girl and her family,” he says, adding that he is currently writing another “commercial” film.
“I don’t want to be dismissed as a niche filmmaker. Steven Spielberg made Jurassic Park (1997) a larger-than-life adventure drama,But he also made a good movie, like The Final (2004). I am inspired by the sheer diversity of his filmography,” he signs off.
Published – September 02, 2025 06:09 PM IST
