At a time when Malayalam cinema is getting national attention, a Malayalam director has gone up north to make a Bhojpuri film. Director Rajesh Mohanan [Rajesh Nair] is directing Mahadev Ka Gorakhpur, a Bhojpuri film, which will be dubbed in several languages.
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Popular Bhojpuri actor and Member of Parliament, Ravi Kishan plays the lead in the movie based on the Aghoris, worshippers of Lord Shiva, whose ascetic ways and religious practices are infamous and feared. “I was planning to make a Hindi film. That’s when our writer, Sai Narayyan, came up with this subject. When we met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with the project, he suggested that we could make it in Bhojpuri. He said that good films are not being made in the language. Since we got the support of the government and we were working with a well-known Bhojpuri actor, we decided to film it in Bhojpuri,” says Rajesh, director of movies such as Escape from Uganda, Salt Mango Tree, Thrissur Pooram and Eighteen Hours.
The film will be released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Rajesh adds that talks are on to release it in Nepali and Chinese as well.
Filmmaker Rajesh Mohanan | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The cast includes Pramod Pathak, Rituparna Sen Gupta, Sushil Singh, Anil Rastogi and Uday Veer Singh. Malayalam actor-director Lal is playing a major role.
Cinematography is by Aravind Singh and music by Agam Agarwal. Produced by Pritesh Shah and Salil Sankaran in association with Ravi Kishan Productions, the film is shot in Uttar Pradesh, Hyderabad, Kerala, Nepal and Istanbul. It is expected to release later this year.