Nizamabad-born Naveen Medaram is set to release his debut movie Babu Baga Busy , a Telugu remake of Hunter , starring Srinivas Avasarala. The director of two British films London Life and Nice To Meet You comes with a Visual Effects background. That had him working in around 30 Hollywood films, including Harry Potter, 2012, Pirates of the Caribbean etc. A resident of London for close to 15 years, Naveen came to Hyderabad for the release of London Life and that’s when he met his current producer Abhishek Nama who gave given the opportunity to direct Babu Baga Busy .
Ask him why he moved to direction after working so long with Visual Effects, he says, “Basically I was inspired to take up Visual Effects after I saw Jurassic Park when I was young. After some time I wanted to do something more than that….it turned out to be mechanical, perhaps that happens when you do something for a long time. I felt it was time to do something more challenging. I still have offers to do British films but when Abhishek gave me the Hunter remake I decided to take it up. I wanted to do Telugu films at some point and was working on scripts whenever I had time. I have 8 scripts all ready with me. But when this came up, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity as Telugu industry is very competitive.”
Naveen was taken aback when he saw the trailer of Hunter but after watching the film he felt it had a lot of scopeit’s actually a beautiful emotional story of three friends. He remarks, “It is very honest. Generally Telugu films have double entendre but there is no hypocrisy involved in this film. There are naughty things between friends which you can connect with easily. There is no explicit stuff, nothing cringe worthy. It is a sensuous and beautiful film, whatever explicit stuff you are talking about is very original. You can’t shy away from the fact that the protagonist is a sex addict. If you are seeing a horror film and you say you don’t want to see a ghost, it doesn’t make sense. I think they might give us an A certificate but I have no complaints.” Yet they toned down explicit scenes to respect Telugu audience who are more sensitive than Bollywood audience. Why did he pick Srinivas Avasarala as the main lead? “This film needed a performer. If you see my previous films, my strength lies in casting. When I was hunting for a face, Srinivas Avasarala was suggested; he is a genius. Avasarala saw the film one night and the very next morning he said he wanted to do it. The actor has a family audience following but I believe a true actor goes for challenges. He said film is projected wrongly and there is lot more content than we can imagine. I am glad he looked at it like that.” As for the rest of the cast, he says Tejaswini was very enthusiastic about being on board. Supriya is a theatre actress and is a hidden gem, one who is very professional. There are three heroines — Mishthi Chakraborthy, Supriya and Tejaswini. Srimukhi has an important role. Did Naveen handle the post production as well? He quips, “Being familiar with post production is a big advantage, one can enhance the film. But it wouldn’t be fair to I say I did everything.”
Babu Baga Busy is aiming at a mid-April release.
