Director Jagadish’s movie Lacchindeviki Oka Lekkundi has wrapped up shoot, all the post production formalities are done and he is waiting for a right time to release the movie.
The soft spoken director from Vijayawada is an engineering graduate from Kancheepuram and moved to Hyderabad in his quest for a career in films, a quest that saw him take many turns.
He talks of how he made a detour to television, “After my course in engineering, my future appeared bleak; I visualised that after 20 years my life would be nothing but going to a boring job, sitting at a desk from 9 am to 5 pm and returning home to catch up with some sleep. I decided I would do something interesting and exciting and gave myself two options — politics and cinema. Since my attitude and thinking is not suitable to politics I zeroed in on movies. At that time, I saw Aithe by director Yeleti Chandrasekhar who was my friend. He suggested that since I had no experience, I should write a script first and get it to him. I worked on it but he did not pay much attention. I travelled with him for some time and as his film got delayed, he recommended me as an assistant director for a television serial Amrutham being directed by Gunnam Gangaraju. I got introduced to the people there and did 34 episodes.”
Later Jagadish worked with music director Keeravani’s father on the movie Chandrahas and followed it up with work in Rajamouli’s camp, right from Yamadonga’ s audio function to Magadheera, Maryada Ramanna and Eega .
He quips, “During Eega, Rama Rajamouli remarked that it was high time I made a film on my own.”
Many people comment that he is a lookalike of Rajamouli; in fact at a recent audio release function, Lakshmi Manchu even stated that her staff mistook Jagadish to be Rajamouli, because of the beard he sports. Jagadish agrees there has been a lot of influence of Rajamouli on him and that had worked for his movie.
Speaking of other friends, he says, “My friend Sai Prasad wanted me to direct so he produced this film Lacchindevi ki Oka Lekkundi . Hanu Raghavpudi, my best friend, gave me a lot of support.” The film starring Lavanya Tripati and Naveen Chandra is a crime comedy and there is an ensemble cast of comedians who provide thorough entertainment. Lavanya’s role is of a selfie girl because she is obsessed with her looks, doesn’t go ahead till she takes a selfie with a dress she needs to wear that day, posts it on FB and decides to wear it based on the number of ‘likes’ she gets for the post/picture.”
Jagadish refuses to divulge any more but says the concept is fresh and will work with both class and mass audiences. Class because Lavanya plays a selfie girl and Naveen Chandra a selfish guy. The tag LoL is perfect and also works as an abbreviated version of Lacchindeviki O Lekkundi ,” he signs off.
