Y.Sunita Chowdhary
Anudeep KV will be a familiar name a few weeks from now. His film Jathi Ratnalu will be out in the theatres and the buzz in the market is very positive. The film is produced by Nag Ashwin on Swapna Cinema banner and has three actors Naveen Polisetty, Rahul Ramakrishna, and Priyadarshi Pulikonda in lead roles. In a chat with Klapboardpost.com, the young and talented director talks of his rise and his dreams in the Telugu film industry. He also talks of the influence of cinema on him. “I would watch a lot of films and the impact of Andaz Apna Apna, Damini, K Vishwanath and Rajkumar Santoshi was great. I also enjoyed music and art and was drawn to films. I just knew there was a pleasure in seeing cinema and wanted to spend all my time in it and then I had the idea of directing a film. I wanted to be with it life long and didn’t know in what capacity to be associated with it. When I decided to be a director, people at home were worried because I was very good at academics. I was mentally prepared however to make cinema as a career. By the time I was in tenth, I decided to go direction.”
Anudeep is from Narayankhed, which is a few hours away from Sangareddy. He has no connections with anyone with a film background. After he graduated, he decided he would go to Hyderabad, visit shooting spots and ask for contacts. The first thing he did was to stay in Krishna Nagar, make it his address. If someone launched a film, he would go behind them. Eventually he made ‘Missed Call’, a short film with his mobile. People automatically began calling him to write tracks in films and Anudeep began making inroads. “I came here thinking it would be great if I became an assistant director but I was blessed with more.” Serendipity sure had its say.
He further says, “I got introduced to Virinchi Verma and started writing the Uyyala Jampala script and in the process I narrated my story to the same producer (who made Uyyala Jampala) and my debut film was okayed. I was in the post production of Pitta Goda (debut film) and director Nag Ashwin messaged me on FB and I saw that two months later. I met him ten days before the release of Pitta Goda. He said we should work together and asked for stories and I liked one of them. I thought he wouldn’t call me, go ahead because my feature film didn’t work but he didn’t bother. He stuck to what he said. He was busy with Mahanati but on and off we were in touch. He wanted something like Missed Call, an out and out comedy. I came up with Jathi Ratnalu. Samar, a script consultant in Vyjayanti, I and Nag Ashwin discussed the structure to give out a wholesome entertainer. Three dumb fellows if they are stuck in a serious crime is the story which is dealt with humour. They are from Jogipet in Sangareddy, and come to Hyderabad suddenly; They are thick friends and they get stuck in a crime without their knowledge and are totally dumb and crazy, very mischievous. How they come out of it is the story. There are many twists and turns in the story.”
He adds, “I am inspired by Charlie Chaplin movies. CC gets stuck this way too, becomes a scapegoat, even in situations where he is not connected and evokes humour at every juncture. I write dialogues very easily. The structure like I said is helped by Samar and Nag Ashwin. It is a two and a half hour out and out comedy. Crime comedies are usually dark. Here you don’t find crime. They speak Telangana when in Jogipet and when they come to Hyderabad they speak in a dialect that is familiar to all. It was fun during the script discussion, the entire process gave us joyous moments. We never had any restrictions in script writing, went out of bounds and wrote crazy. At times on the sets we did improvisations and most of the time it was a spontaneous work. Naveen Polisetty loves humour and in our first meet itself we connected. He has immense clarity on what to do with his career. He was busy with Chichore at that time and told Nag Ashwin that the script has potential and he will be a part of it. There is no double entendre in the film, it has been dealt with sensitively and we were conscious about it. We had filters at every stage and made sure it isn’t offensive. There is a romantic track too between the heroine and Naveen Polisetty. It is a subplot. We shot 60 days and the number of days increased because unavailability of artists dates, a lot of chasings in this crime comedy.”
Music is by Radhan and he gave the background score as well. Radhan in the past faced flak for late execution but in Anudeep’s case, he was prompt with his deliveries. “If I didn’t like a tune, he would give another one immediately. Music will be an asset and you will know how deeply Radhan understands music. Manohar is the cinematographer, he owned the cinema completely, rejected many offers and stuck to this film. Ali and Chandrika are art directors and they worked on Mahanati. On the sets they too were focussed. The shooting took place in Hyderabad as well. A cinema holds the audience in two ways. What is happening next is the curiosity element. For instance take the film Satya, the audience can’t judge or predict what is happening next. In Nuvvu Naku Nachav, the story is predictable but the humour keeps you sustained and hooked till the end. I always think if we are passing a message, we should tell it in a light hearted manner. I have love and comedy subjects ready with me for my next projects,” he signs off.
