Original name: Ondanondu Kaladalli
English name: Once Upon a Time
Year: 1978
Run time: 137 minutes
Language: Kannada
Type (Colour/ Black & white): Colour
Country: India
Director: Girish Karnad
Producer: G. N. Lakshmipathy, K. N. Narayan
Cast: Shankar Nag, Sunder Krishna Urs , Sundar Raj, Akshatha Rao, Sushilendra Joshi, Ajit Saldanha, Rekha Sabnis, Anil Thakkar, Vasant Rao.
Screenplay: Rajni Basumatary
Cinematographer: Apurba Kishore Bir
Editor: P. Bhaktavatsalam
Production Company: L. N. Combines
Awards :
26th National Film Awards
Best Feature Film in Kannada - Girish Karnad and L. N. Combines
Karnataka State Film Awards
Best Kannada Film - 1978-79
Best Supporting Actor – Sundar Krishna Urs
Best Editing – P. Bhakthavathsalam
Best Sound Recording – S. P. Ramanathan
Filmfare Awards South
Best Film
Best Director — Girish Karnad
International Film Festival of India
Ondanondu Kaladalli was screened at the 7th IFFI competition section.
Ondanondu Kaladalli was also screened at 14th IFFI Homage to Shankar Nag.
Director’s Biography: Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Rhodes Scholar, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s, marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India. For four decades Karnad composed plays, often using history and mythology to tackle contemporary issues. He translated his plays into English and received acclaim. His plays have been translated into some Indian languages and directed by directors like Ebrahim Alkazi, B. V. Karanth, Alyque Padamsee, Prasanna, Arvind Gaur, Satyadev Dubey, Vijaya Mehta, Shyamanand Jalan, Amal Allanaa and Zafer Mohiuddin. He was active in the world of Indian cinema working as an actor, director and screenwriter, in Hindi and Kannada cinema, and has earned awards. He was conferred Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan by the Government of India and won four Filmfare Awards, of which three are Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada and the fourth a Filmfare Best Screenplay Award. He was a presenter for a weekly science magazine programme called "Turning Point" that aired on Doordarshan in 1991.
Synopsis: Ondanondu Kaladalli (English:Once Upon a Time) is a 1978 Indian Kannada-language epic film co-written and directed by Girish Karnad with soundtrack by Bhaskar Chandavarkar, starring Shankar Nag. Through this movie, Kavita Krishnamurthy started her singing career as playback singer. The film has influences of the early samurai films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, to whom Karnad has reportedly acknowledged his indebtedness. The film won the 1978 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada "For delineating the code of warrior's ethics in a medieval setting with a modern vision. The film has excellent outdoor photography, high standard of acting and an eye-catching decor" as cited by the Jury. Shankar Nag received the "Best Actor : Silver Peacock Award" at the 7th International Film Festival of India for his work in the film. The film was subtitled into English for its American premiere on 18 October 1995 in Shriver Hall at the Johns Hopkins University as part of the 1995 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium "Framing Society : A Century of Cinema".
