Hyderabad’s Old city atmosphere has been recreated at Sarathi Studios with an authentic looking street set and a restaurant. Even before could admire the set put up by art director Mouli and his men, part of the restaurant and a few shops on the street were smeared to pieces in a ‘bomb’ explosion. Cinematographer Sabu James captured the devastation in detail and turned the camera towards a group of men watching the gory deed while crowd run hither and thither. A close look reveals the men as popular actors – Raghubabu, Jeeva, Shafi and L. B. Sriram. The first three areseen in an animated discussion while Sriram takes digs at dirty politics compares the politicians with the dirt he clears every day as a worker with the City Municipal Corporation. After a couple of retakes, Sunil Kumar Reddy okays the actors’ performances.
Message for the young
Gayathri who acted in the director’s earlier production, Oka Romantic Crime Katha, (ORCK) a box office hit, plays the female lead and is cast as a radio jockey. Though they are yet to name the movie, there is a subtitle – ‘oka teenage girl premakatha’ based on the character Gayathri plays. The hero’s identity is keptunder wraps. “We will reveal his name and the title of the movie soon. The hero plays a paramedic with an ambulance service,” says Sunil Kumar. “It is a teen love story with a strong undercurrent message for the youth on contemporary issues. Raghubabu is the corrupt politician, Shafi, a factionist and Jeeva is cast as the supervisor with an ambulance service. Meka Ramakrishna makes his debut as the villain and he is doing a splendid job,” he says. Interestingly, Anil Kalyan, the comic villain of ORCK plays a comic role opposite Soni Charishta. “The idea is to focus on his multi-dimensional abilities.” ‘Sukhibhava’ Krishnamurthy plays an important role as the heroine’s father. Vaibhav Surya and F M Babai are in the cast.
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Sunil adds that when he said there is a message for the young, it does not mean that he is making a film with idealistic or utopian slogans. “At the end of the show, the audience besides enjoying pure entertainment should take back something good home. I would call it a functional cinema.”
The movie produced by Y. Ravindra Babu with ‘Digiquest’ Basireddy and B. Bapiraju as co-producers is in the final stages of completion and the last schedule commences from January 22.
The movie will hit the marquee in February.
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‘PROD. NO. 9’
Cast: Gayathri, Soni Charishta, Anil Kalyan, Meka Ramakrishna
Story, screenplay, dialogue, direction: P. Sunil Kumar Reddy
Music: Praveen Immadi
Banner: Sravya Films