Ahimsa director Teja to launch 45 actors in his next with Rana Daggubati tentatively titled…

Director Teja minces no words during his public appearances and he doesn’t care to be politically correct - a rare phenomenon for someone in Telugu cinema. His next release is Ahimsa, launching Abhiram Daggubati, Geethika Tiwary as lead actors. With music by RP Patnaik, the film produced by Anandi Art Creations releases in theatres on June 2. The film’s pre-release event was held at Chirala yesterday.

The filmmaker, besides talking about Ahimsa, also revealed interesting details about his next project with Rana during his speech. “I used to stay in an outhouse behind Suresh Productions’ office, watching the posters of Soggadu, Secretary. I promised Ramanaidu that I would launch his grandson one day but developed cold feet and ignored his attempts to reach out to me. When he passed away, I was guilty that I couldn’t fulfil my promise,” he said.

“I had written a story sometime later and felt Abhiram would be a good choice and narrated it to Suresh Babu. He wasn’t excited to launch his son and asked me to drop the project. He took a few hours to give me a green signal because it would be apt for Abhiram. When he watched the rushes, he wasn’t convinced and felt his son didn’t do a good job. I said I want to complete the film solely because of the promise I made to Ramanaidu garu. He was left teary eyed,” Teja added.

The Nuvvu Nenu director called himself very unpredictable when it comes to his decisions. “I was surprised to see crowds thronging to a film titled Kameswari, starring Shakila, in a theatre in Hyderabad. In her intro scene, crowds broke coconuts, were performing a puja akin to NTR’s mythological films in the past. That’s when I decided to cast her in Jayam.”

“When someone introduced me to RP Patnaik, I roped him in even when he claimed he didn’t know music. I don’t look at any background while choosing my team and did the same with Ahimsa too. I tortured my lead actors - Geethika, Abhiram - a lot during the shoot. They lost all their weight and took time to return to their original avatar later,” he stated.

While talking about his next project after Ahimsa, Teja mentioned, “In my next film with Rana Daggubati after Nene Raju Nene Mantri, I plan to launch 45 new actors, at least ten of them from Chirala. The film is tentatively titled Rakshasa Raju.”