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27th
December 2005
What
did you learn from the success of Anand and how you arrived
at Godavari?
Family crowds and working class latched on to Anand. There
is certain section of films who stopped watching films because
of the run-of the-mill nature of films. All those people came
back to Anand. Ladies liked the progressiveness in Roopa character
played by Kamalinee Mukherjee. And progressiveness in women
was projected in the right time in the form of Anand film.
If
you look at my first two films (Dollar Dreams and Anand),
they speak about urban middle class people. That is the genre
I proved to be successful at. I did not want to change the
genre. Godavari is another urban middle class story set against
the backdrop of Godavari.
What
is Godavari film all about?
Godavari is a soft romantic comedy with Godavari backdrop.
We captured the nature and scenic beauty in Godavari. Nature
has a part to play in this story. I am fascinated by Godavari
and Papi Kondalu since my childhood.
Tell
us how you arrived at the cast?
Sumanth:
We tried for Madhavan initially, but could not get his dates.
Since Godavari is a soft romantic comedy, I wanted a hero
with soft image. Sumanth is the right person to do that
role as he has the right image. I also feel that smart heroes
allow new wave directors to do the film in their style.
Sumanth has that sensibility to trust the director. You
would see a new Sumanth in this film.
Kamalinee
Mukherjee: Kamalinee plays the role of Seeta Maalakshmi
in Godavari. She is projected in different angle in Godavari
compared to Anand. It was not real Kamalinee who did the
role of Roopa. The character of Seetamalakshmi is very close
to her real life character.
Tanikella
Bharani: Tanikella Bharani plays a pivotal role in this
film. I also wanted him in the film because, he could help
me out whenever they were some practical problems. His experience
helped us a lot.
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new faces: All other artists in Godavari are stage actors
handpicked from Godavari districts. We made deliberate efforts
to make all these artists respond in their natural ways
instead of aping the characters in Vamsi’s films. These
stage artists would bring lots of freshness and new flavor
to the film like the artists of Lagaan film.
What
is the reason behind partnering with GVG Raju?
GVG Raju is in touch with me since the release of Dollar Dreams.
Hence he is the natural choice to me though there were lots
of producers willing to make a film with me. I do not want
to cash on the success of Anand by increasing the remunerations
and hiking the budget. I want to see happiness in the faces
of producer and distributors. Hence I am doing another reasonably
low budget film in form of Godavari. But during this process,
I overlooked practical problems of Godavari terrain.
What
were those problems?
Initially we planned to shoot the film in 50 days. The incessant
rains started pouring from the 2nd day onwards. We had to
wait for the right lighting and shoot the film. Color of Godavari
changes every six months. We wanted to capture both red water
and normal water of Godavari. We never had bright sun and
clear sky for 35 days. Ultimately we took 80 days to shoot
the film so far. We shot for those 80 days continuously without
any break. It was a very laborious process. And work for 10
days is pending now.
Tell
us about the music and photography?
KM Radhakrishnam who scored for Anand is scoring music. There
are six songs. Veturi penned all the lyrics. He wrote a great
song on Godavari. Cinematographer C Vijay Kumar came up with
spectacular photography by doing beautiful gradation.
How
is it like shooting outdoors? Is it really expensive?
Every day we have 200 members working for the film. We had
to buy Rs. 30,000/- worth of diesel everyday to run boats
and generators.
Are
you still working for Polaris?
No. I resigned from my job 5 months back.
More
chitchats
Madhu Sharma
KS Rama Rao 2
Sumanth
Srihari
Mohan Babu 2
Sania Mirza
Suresh Kondeti
KV Ramana IAS
Raja
Surya
Vikram 2
Srikanth Chinnamatur
Prabhas 2
Satya Krishnanan
Prabhas 1
MRV Prasad
PG Vinda
Jaya
Devi Sri Prasad
AM Ratnam 2
Sonu Sood
Ram Gopal Varma 3
Mahesh Babu 2
Shankar
Vikram 1
Mohan Babu 1
KS Rama Rao 1
Dil Raju
Manyam Ramesh
Tarun
Raghu Babu
Krishna Vamsi
Posani Krishna
Murali
AS Ravi Kumar
Chowdary
Sravanthi Ravi
Kishore
MS Raju
AM Ratnam
Nagarjuna
Ram Gopal Varma 2
SS Rajamouli
Venkatesh
Mahesh Babu
Ram Gopal Varma
Vanisri
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