Sriwass’ fifth film Dictator is releasing on Sankranti. His previous film Loukyam despite its success, was termed routine. Ask him if the Balakrishna-starrer Dictator too will fall in the same category, he says, “We are here to do films without a break. Given the situation, availability of the hero and script at that point of time, I went ahead with Loukyam . Churning out new stories is a time-consuming process and I am a commercial filmmaker. If some fresh idea strikes me, I will definitely go ahead but when I don’t have it, I will settle for a safe project. The goal is entertainment. If you keep looking for new plots, theatres will not have a floating crowd and distributors will run out of work.”
Dictator Sriwass’ father was a fan of NTR and had always wanted his son to work with Balakrishna. Directing Balakrishna’s 99th film was not planned, it just happened. Ask him if it was easy working with the matinee idol and the director responds with clarity, “When I approached Balakrishna, I just had a story on mind and no clue as to who would be the producer. He had absolute trust in me and gave me the green signal. Dealing with him isn’t complex at all, you only need to be straight and honest with him. I always believe that when in a problem, one shouldn’t beat around the bush and try to manage it by giving all kinds of excuses and stories. It only complicates matters.”
Explaining why he turned producer, he says, “Sometimes a director has to suppress his creativity due to budgetary issues and since I had a star hero and a corporate company Eros to support me, I became a co-producer. I designed the project and all the decision making and homework had been done. This is Eros’ first straight production and they are releasing
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Finally he talks of Balakrishna’s look in the movie: he didn’t entirely go offbeat knowing that it could displease the actor’s fans. All he did was to blend his thoughts with the way Balakrishna had been presented in his 98 films.