Venky Atluri: Many memes on my earlier films inspired me to write Sir

Director Venky Atluri made a smashing debut with the rom com Tholi Prema a few years ago and carved a path for himself as a ‘romance’ specialist with films like Mr Majnu and Rang De. The filmmaker has broken all the stereotypes of a ‘typical Venky Atluri’ product with his next release Sir a.k.a Vaathi, the Tamil-Telugu bilingual that’s set to release worldwide on February 17.

“I watch memes regularly on social media and many ridiculed me after Rang De that I would always set my second half in London and believed I could make only romances. I broke all such myths with Sir and Sithara Entertainments okayed it immediately. When all doors were closed during the second wave of COVID-19, Dhanush was ready to listen to my script and everything fell into place,” he said.

“I wasn’t expecting Dhanush to say yes to the film and went in with a satisfaction that I could at least narrate my story to him. After the narration, when he asked ‘when do you want my dates?’ I almost pinched myself out of happiness and had none to share my excitement with (during lockdown),” Venky Atluri stated while hailing the efforts of cinematographer Yuvraj and composer GV Prakash as well.

“Yuvraj sir was an unexpected addition to Sir but he’s the best thing to have happened to the film. Everyone’s raving about the songs now, but people will remember Sir for GV Prakash’s background score. We roped in Samyuktha after noticing her performance in Bheemla Nayak and she’s a fine performer. Several big names associated with the film and it’s all because of Dhanush,” Venky added.

The director expressed his confidence that Hyper Aadhi’s performance would resonate with Tamil audiences as well and thanked his team for the support. Venky Atluri, before turning a director, also acted in the college drama Sneha Geetham and worked in the writing team for Kerintha and It’s My Love Story.