Kavya Thapar, Sundeep Kishan and Varsha Bollamma in director Vi Anand’s ‘Ooru Peru Bhairavakona’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The query ‘what if?’ could make our creativeness run wild and maybe spark a narrative worthy of a big display expertise. Vi Anand, author and director of the Telugu thriller Ooru Peru Bhairavakona, which releases in theatres on February 16, traces the origin of the movie’s story concept to his engineering days when he travelled by Yercaud Express from Chennai to Erode, his hometown. “I woke up at night to find that the train had stopped in the middle of nowhere. Everything was dark when I looked out of the window. Then, I spotted faint lights, fireworks and heard the sound of drums from a distance. I gathered that there could be some festivities in a distant village. I was curious about the village, its people and the midnight festivities. I also wondered, what if I get down from the train and visit the place?” In Ooru Peru…, actor Sundeep Kishan performs a personality who visits one such village and learns, to his shock, that the folks have been ready for him.
The movie is Anand’s second collaboration with Sundeep Kishan after Tiger, the 2015 Telugu motion drama. During this interview at his workplace in Hyderabad, Anand recollects the ‘what if?’ that triggered Tiger. “I was riding my bike and on that day, I was not carrying my wallet or ID cards. A thought crossed my mind that if I were to meet with an accident, no one would know who I am. I told myself that in such an eventuality, I should quickly blurt out my wife’s phone number so that someone can contact her. It’s a scary thought but it made me write a story.” In Tiger, the telephone quantity revealed by Rahul Ravindran who meets with an accident paves method for the story.
Director Vi Anand
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Post Tiger, Anand and Sundeep had change into associates and confidantes and typically bounced concepts off one another. “He is upfront and tells me when he thinks I have not written well enough. That feedback has always helped,” says Anand.
Not a daily hero
The director shared a couple of story concepts with Sundeep in 2020. The actor preferred Ooru Peru… since he had not been a part of a supernatural fantasy drama. “His character, Basavalingam, is not a straightforward hero. He has stolen jewellery and is on the run, there are grey shades to his character,” says Anand. As the story developed and each Anand and Sundeep have been eager to make it into a movie, their frequent pal, Rajesh Danda, acknowledged his curiosity in producing it and launched the manufacturing firm, Hasya Movies. The movie went on flooring in February 2022.
The fictional village Bhairavakona is positioned amid forests and Anand conceptualised it such that it’s steeped in thriller and rituals. Some of Anand’s earlier movies too have had the fantasy factor — Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada, as an illustration. He recollects being fascinated by ideas of death and afterlife for years. “I believe in past life and have been curious about what happens after death and the journey of the soul to attain salvation or to the next birth. That made me read Garuda Puranam. In this film, we took the creative liberty to weave a story stating that four pages of the book have gone missing and what that can lead to.”
Magic realism
Once Anand writes a narrative, he shares it with his spouse, his older son who’s now 14 and shut associates who weigh in and provide their suggestions. He gauges their reactions to see if his tales curiosity them. He says Ooru Peru… has components of magical realism. Having learn books equivalent to Many Lives Many Masters on previous lives, he additionally mentions Piranesi as one amongst his favourites.
Sundeep Kishan and Varsha Bollamma within the Telugu movie ‘Ooru Peru Bhairavakona’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Ask Anand how he visualises fantasy dramas for the massive display and he says he goes with the circulation and doesn’t overthink as soon as the plot factors, conflicts and characters are delineated. “I make things difficult for Basavalingam in this film so that the audience is invested in his journey to see how he rises above all the hurdles. As his endurance is tested, it will be interesting to see how his character evolves.” Anand provides that Ooru Peru… may need a couple of jumpscares however stays within the entertaining, family-friendly zone.
Ooru Peru… will launch solely in Telugu and going by its reception, it could be dubbed in Tamil and Hindi. Growing up in Tamil Nadu and later transferring to Hyderabad, Anand observes that the aesthetics and grammar of Telugu cinema is totally different from that of Tamil, regardless that a number of dubbed movies have discovered takers in each areas. “The dialogue delivery, scene construction and drama are different. Very few films can be made simultaneously in both languages.” Looking again at his earlier movies, he says his expertise of working in Tamil (Appuchi Gramam) in addition to Telugu made him perceive the variations required to have interaction the viewers. “Tiger was significant for me in that sense. Abburi Ravi wrote the dialogues and I understood how he knew the pulse of the Telugu audience. When I directed my first film Hrudayam Ekkadunnadi (2014), I did not know how to write for a Telugu film.”
After the discharge of Ooru Peru…, Anand will start engaged on a movie starring Nikhil Siddhartha and there are two extra fantasy dramas within the pipeline.