Biopic on 'Bridge Man' Girish Bhardwaj to be made in Kannada and Hindi 

Filmmaker Santhosh Kodenkeri is all set to make a biopic on social worker Girish Bhardwaj, who is known as the Sethu Bandhu or the Bridge Man of India. Bhardwaj, who is credited with having built 139 bridges in remote villages across the country, was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2017. 

Titled The Bridgeman, the film will be released in Kannada and Hindi.

Kodenkeri, whose last film was the Kannada horror flick Homestay (2016), aims to tell Bhardwaj’s story in an interesting way and ensure that it doesn’t appear like a documentary. “If we show his story as it is, it may look like a documentary, so we have to add some ingredients and we have to show a couple of issues he faced during his journey,” he said in a statement. 

He added that the tone of The Bridgeman would be similar to that of recent Hindi biopics. “It’s like a parallel film. It’s in a similar space as Saand Ki Aankh (2019) or Manjhi: The Mountain Man (2015), so the style of filmmaking will be to portray a true character and subject in a cinematic way. It is a bit challenging,” said Kodenkeri. 

Bhardwaj, on the other hand, wants his story to be told truthfully. “He [Bhardwaj] is only concerned that people should know his real story without much commercial value because he does not belong to a filmy background. But he is very happy,” said Kodenkeri. 

The film will be shot across five locations including Kerala and Hyderabad. The cast will be revealed later.

Kodenkeri said that the release of the film would depend on how it is shot. “We are planning to release the film in 2021 but it depends on the geographical aspect as well because we want to show the monsoon period and heavy flow of water in rivers. Either we have to do it against a green mat with VFX or we will have to shoot on real locations. So, we are also working on the production design of the film,” he said.