What happens when you bring together a Telugu star, a Malayalam star and a Tamil movie director?
It becomes a true amalgamation of south Indian cinema and this is what Kaantha is all about.
Starring Rana Daggubati and Dulquer Salmaan (DQ), and directed by Selvamani Selvaraj, this period thriller (released in Tamil and Telugu) has reportedly grossed around Rs 27 crore worldwide and has been declared a hit in Tamil.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, an elated Rana Daggubati, who has co-produced Kaantha with Dulquer Salmaan, says that this genre-bender flick was an indie experiment in many ways.
"I think Kaantha is experimental in a sense because it's a bit art house. Right now, the Telugu audience is moving at a certain pace and it was too arty for them; something that they haven't seen before for years. Kaantha got a much more mainstream reception in Tamil. Dulquer, Selva and I, coming together for a story that happened in Madras, had a pretty unique voice.
"It's also a genre bender in some ways - like an emotional story becoming an investigative film. It was like an indie experiment in some manner. A friend of mine called me on the day of Kaantha's release and said, 'This is the day independent cinema and commercial cinema shook hands'. I think that's what our intent was as well," he smiles.
The DQ factor
In Kaantha, an Agatha Christie-like murder thriller set in 1950s Madras, Dulquer plays superstar TK Mahadevan while Rana essays the role of police officer Phoenix.
Elaborating about roping in Dulquer when Rana got the script, he says, "We wanted an actor that fits in in a period film and the first choice was Dulquer. I think anybody who writes a period film thinks of him first because of the way he looks, the way he performs. There's a certain vintage classic-ness about him. Selva had written the story like a book and we took some time to turn into the right screenplay and it has been a great journey."
The friendship between Dulquer and Rana goes back decades as they have been friends since Class 9. For Kaantha, they didn't just come together as actors but also as co-producers with Spirit Media and Wayfarer Films collaborating.
"This is the best working relationship I've ever had. I don't think it was just camaraderie - it was friendship; so much love. I think each of us had so much love for each other. Just not the two of us, but Selva, Bhagyashree, Kani sir.
"And there was also so much drama and performance in the film - it's almost like we were in a play in some ways. If you see the way Dani (Spanish cinematographer Dani Sanchez Lopez) shoots or Selva writes the scenes, there are long scenes that happen. We cracked this film-in-film meta-type storytelling, which was cool on paper, but we were very excited once we cracked it in the film itself," explains the Baahubali star.
While they had a great time working together, disagreements were also par for the course as they wanted the best for Kaantha.
According to the Telugu star, "Disagreements were all fighting for the film. It's such a new thing in terms of narrative, like for a guy like me, who is so commercial in thought and has a certain sense of storytelling. Dulquer's got a certain sense. Somewhere, knowingly or unknowingly, it had a very indie narrative of Malayalam films and had a scale that Telugu cinema has. There were many disagreements but it was all in good faith. It just strengthened everything else further. Working with Dulquer was a lot of fun; he's such a great actor."
Director Selvamani Selvaraj, who is known for the docu series The Hunt For Veerapan on Netflix, makes his feature film debut with Kaantha.
Ask the Ghazi star about working with a first-time director and he replies, "Both Dulquer and I come from this belief where only a new filmmaker will give us a new voice in a new story. We made sure that Selva had some good HODs like Dani, editor Anthony and music director Jakes Bejoy.
"The team around him was good and all of us were trying to work with Selva's vision in terms of getting this film together. It is totally his film. The most challenging part of the film I'd say was to condense this book-style writing that Selva had into a screenplay - once we got that, it was pretty much a breeze."
New Slate Of Films
Spirit Media was launched in 2005 by Rana but it's only now that he has got into full-fledged feature film production. He recently announced a slate of five films, including Psych Siddhartha, directed by Varun Reddy; Premante, a Telugu rom-com; Dark Chocolate, a pulpy dark comedy; and a Hindi adaptation of Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga, starring Manoj Bajpayee.
However, Rana himself has not been seen in a Telugu film for a while. He explains that he has been focusing on Spirit Media to get it right as a producer.
"Before I became an actor, I produced an independent film, Belly Full Of Dreams (2006). The film won multiple national awards and awards internationally, but it just didn't get a theatrical release as it was too Indian in spirit. And that was the cinema I always liked. Once I became an actor, I was trying to marry that Indian 'commercialness' as well. Once C/o Kancharapalem (2018) happened in my life, I realised there is an audience for indie cinema.
"I decided to find a more structured way to build it. That's the cinema that I liked and shaped a lot of my thinking when I was growing up. There were a lot of great directors in each language like Balu Mahendra, K Balachander and K Vishwanath. There was that independent side that happened..."
Somewhere in the world of commerce, Rana says, the industry lost that style of storytelling.
"My larger belief is that if you don't serve variety to an audience, the audience will keep decreasing. When we built Spirit, it was purely from the angle of how do we encourage new talent? How do we create a more democratic way of operating a film production company? And that took longer than I thought.
"When you're an actor you'd be in a slightly elevated position; once you're a producer, it's a very different operational style. It took some time to get the right team together to make this operation flow smoothly. The films we've announced are with talented first-time directors, or directors that are working with us for the second time. I thank all the audience and my fans for still rooting for me every time I come on screen. I think I've kept them waiting too long. I'll start my next post-Sankranti," he reveals.
But why isn't Rana doing any Malayalam film is a question being asked on social media given the great chemistry they share on and off screen. Rana laughs and says, "I'm just waiting for Dulquer to launch me in Malayalam! That's the wait."
The Box Office Conundrum
The Baahubali star is someone who has seen films that have grossed anywhere ranging from Rs 100 crore to more than Rs 1,000 crore. Having seen both sides of the coin, was it just about good cinema and not the scale for him?
"I think this math of films only started in the last few years. When I was growing up, people didn't know how much Baasha, Nayagan or Iruvar collected. We saw all of them in the same stride and we liked them for different reasons. I believe variety is fun and that's what cinema can do. Our country is so diverse, we have so many different things that happen so why should cinema be the same? I think the box office is just not the perfect measure for it," he says.
The producer adds that Kaantha was profitable for a simple reason - they were "very careful" about the way the film was shot.
"Every story has a budget and it can be told the way it's intended to. I don't think you can plan a Rs 1,000 crore or Rs 100 crore box office film - it's the story and the intent behind it in some manner. This is where I come from, in terms of my thinking and understanding. And cinema stays with you differently, for different reasons, right? There'll be some that are very emotional, that will talk to you in a very different manner, than a big exciting epic does. I like both pan-Indian and small films a lot."
Rana's wife, entrepreneur Miheeka is artistically inclined and shares a passion for good art.
"Miheeka liked Kaantha very much and because she's an artist, there's a certain love for art that she's got. She was very excited for the film as well," says Rana.
Veteran film producer Suresh Daggubati, Rana's father, was all praise for Dulquer as TK Mahadevan. Did he feel left out?
Rana laughs and says, "No, no. I was in an extended cameo in some manner. Kaantha was designed around this character TKM which Dulquer played and I think he just did a phenomenal job. If my dad didn't say that, it would have upset me! I think TKM was Dulquer's career best in terms of performance."
All in all, Rana is glad he got to work with Dulquer on Kaantha.