It’s music to the ears of all those die-hard fans of actor Chiranjeevi. Shooting of his much-awaited 150th film ‘Kathilaantodu’ to be hemmed by director V.V. Vinayak will start after June 15 at a yet-to-be-confirmed location. It will be a remake of the Tamil hit film ‘Kathi’ that had Vijay in the lead.
The first schedule of this film that has the lead actor fighting for the cause of farmers in a village will go on for 20 days. While the heroine is yet to be finalised, the film will have combination scenes of popular comedians including Ali and Brahmanandam, apart from character artists like Jayaprakash, actor/writer Posani Krishna Mohan and a host of others.
When contacted, the director told The Hindu that newcomers would comprise a major chunk of the cast. “We need originality and that is the reason we have chosen several people who will face the camera for the first time in their lives. They need to play the role of farmers and we cannot have well-known faces in those roles, for obvious reasons,” he said.
As for more details, while a major part of the film is to be shot in and around Hyderabad and predominantly against the backdrop of villages in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, at least two songs will be canned in exotic locales abroad, as tradition demands. “Other than these, we expect to shoot much of the film in the two States only,” was what Mr. Vinayak had to say.
While popular director of photography Ratnavel will be behind the camera, art director Thota Tharani is said to be working overtime on finishing the initial sketches and work on the sets has already begun, it is said.
An interesting factor about Chiranjeevi’s 150th film is that it comes with tonnes of expectations, literally. At least, a dozen directors have narrated stories to the actor over the past three years or so, before he zeroed in on the story and gave the go-ahead to Vinayak.
