Y. Sunita Chowdhary
Dayal Padmanabhan is making his debut with Anaganaga Oka Athidhi on AhA this month. The director is a Tamilian, he migrated to Bangalore in 1988.and pursued a film career. Before that he worked for many years as a junior scientist in Indian Institute of Science. It was his dream to become an actor and he idolised actor Murali and took him as an inspiration to get into movies. “People around me were encouraging and goaded me to be an actor. I lost my father when I was very young and had responsibilities to fulfil. I remember participating in plays in school and that was when I was bitten by the acting bug. I got married when I was 22 years old and told my wife about my interest and she advised that we stabilise the family financially first. I did that and after many years when I was ready, it became too late for me to be a hero. I am good at writing and dabbled in short stories, poems etc so I got in touch with a writer (Naga) and I became a co-writer.”
I directed Aa Karaala Rathri in 2018, a Kannada project which meant ‘that dark night’ which is now ‘Anaganaga oka athithi’. I got the best state film award and best director award for that film and I produced eight film in Kannada. I was offered to remake the film in Telugu by AhA. The work was simple as there was guidance plenty from AhA and the dialogue writer. The casting and marketing and production was done by them and I directed the film in 19 days. Now the cinema is almost ready and in another two days I will be giving the copy to AhA. There wasn’t any problem with the budget too, they asked what I would be needing and I told them my requirement. They gave it. The film doesn’t require much money to get ready, it has a unique concept and is universal. It is a thriller which doesn’t fall under the formula. In most thrillers, we get to see a crime, multiple suspects and the criminal will be found, he will talk about the motivation behind the crime but this thriller doesn’t fall under the formula. I am directing it in Tamil too from November 30 onwards”, shares Dayal.
Why does he need to do the film in yet another language? It has subtitles right? Dayal has an interesting answer and compares it with cuisine. “Every language has its own nativity, within South India itself we have Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam and the cultures vary. We don’t connect to the characters by dubbing. Also I don’t get bored doing the same film in another language. When the content is good and you do it with different actors, it is like having good food every time. Biryani in Bangalore is different from that in Hyderabad, Chennai and Kerala right?” Dayal is all praise for the cast of the film, especially Chaitanya Krishna and Payal Rajput. He terms Chaitanya Krishna as one of the finest actors he ever worked with.
He is aware that the actor hasn’t had successful films but it is of least importance to him. He shares, “In Kannada too I never went behind stars, I did only budget films with good actors and good content and never bothered about hits and flops. I met very few fine actors in my life and he is one of them. He understands the character very well, he doesn’t burden the director and delivers what is needed. There is Payal Rajput, Veena Sunder who worked in the Kannada film as a mother and there is Anand Chakrapani, a Telugu actor who is well known. All of them did great work. Payal was a surprise package for me. I saw Venky Mama and RX100. That was conventional cinema but here she proved how great she is as an actor; she is a nice combination of looks and talent. I give a lot of freedom to actors and she uses the space to explore her talent.”
This is not a crime thriller that one generally comes across says Dayal. The cinema will make people think every 15 to 20 minutes. The content is matured and realistic and the duration is 94 minutes. It is about a stranger who comes to an isolated home for a night stay. The house mates and the stranger have strange experiences. There are around four characters in the house and this period film is set in 1980. The house set has been put up at RFC. Dayal finally reveals, “The house is without electricity, you will find lantern magic in this cinema. We used lanterns in many places. Cinematographer Rakesh worked with me in eight 8 films in the past and he added value to the project.”
