Rishab Shetty honored with Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards 2023 for Kantara

The grand success of Kantara has already made Rishab Shetty a global superstar. Now adding another feather to his cap, the actor-director has received a coveted honour. It has been learnt that the Kannada star is being presented with the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival Awards 2023 for Most Promising Actor. The actor received this honour for playing the character of Kambala Champion in the 2022 film, who is out to seek the truth and can do anything to protect his village and the people living in it.

Although the actor-director has maintained silence on this honour, in the past, Rishab Shetty has spoken about how special Kantara has been as a film to him. In fact, when the film completed 100 days recently, he also expressed gratitude towards audiences for showering so much love on the film. “We are very pleased and thankful to the audience who had shown immense love and support to Kantara and taking the journey ahead, with the blessing of almighty Daiva the film has successfully completed 100 days,” he had said.

Kantara, which was initially planned as a Kannada film, later started releasing in multiple languages owing to its massive fan following including in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi. The film is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video and on Netflix (in Hindi language). In fact, recently, the makers announced that the film also released in English and is available for international audiences on Netflix.

Interestingly, the makers of the film have also confirmed that they would be creating Kantara as a franchise and that Kantara 2 is on the cards. On the day it completed 100 days, Rishab Shetty added, “I would like to take this opportunity to announce the prequel of Kantara. What you have seen is actually Part 2, Part 1 will come next year.”

The prequel for Kantara will be produced by Vijay Kiragandur and Chaluve Gowda, under Hombale Films, and will once again feature Rishab Shetty in the lead. As for Kantara (2022), the film featured Saptami Gowda as the leading lady along with Kishore, and Achyuth Kumar playing pivotal roles.