Chandu Muddu is no debutant. His first Telugu film Ma Voorlo O Sari Yem Jarigindhante, an independent venture, released a few years ago. Though his concept and directorial skills were lauded, he did not get the push. Now, after seven years of struggle, he has come up with another concept-based film called O Pitta Katha . The recently-released poster of the film based in Kakinada and with many twists stirred enough interest — it has three pairs of footwear belonging to three characters Venkatalakshmi, Krish and Prabhu. One is a worn out chappal, other is a decent slipper and the last one is a good pair of shoes.
Speaking of how the film came about, Chandu says, “It took three years to write the script of O Pitta Katha. After I was introduced to Brahmaji, he helped me put the script in place. Before this I had directed another film Ee Cinema Super Hit Guarantee. Directors Sagar Chandra and Merlapaka Gandhi were of great support and felt that I have the potential. Things moved from there.”
The story of O Pitta Katha is narrated in the perspective of two people. Nitya Shetty, a child artiste-turned-heroine plays the leading lady Venkatalakshmi. Chandhu says, “It is a complicated screenplay with strong village naivete. We shot in Hyderabad, Kerala and Kakinada, first in 5D, showed it to the producers and once we got the approval went ahead and shot it again. Vishwant, Sanjay, Balraju and Brahmaji are the principal characters.”
Armed with a MA in Telugu literature from Amalapuram, Chandhu is a low profile man who spends all his time in an orphanage writing stories despite having a family of his own. That he has a fetish for village-based subjects is evident. He adds, “It is a clean movie and if you see it, you’ll get a feeling you are in a village for Sankranthi. Yet, nothing that you expect happens, it will be a sweet surprise.”
Praveen Lakkaraju who had earlier worked in Express Raja and Gitanjali scored the music. Sunil Kumar is the cinematographer; a DFT graduate, he had earlier worked in Jessie, a horror film. “My film is not inspired or adapted from any book or film. If an accident happens, we blame the opposite person and that person blames us. But actually what happens there is something else,” says Chandu explaining the essence of the film, and adds, “I hope to make it big with this film because I have the support of a production house, Bhavya Creations.”
For his last film, Chandu had released it on his own though he was a novice in marketing cinema. Producer Yash Rangineni has the remake rights of Chandu’s Ma Voorlo… and has plans to remake it. Director Trivikram Srinivas gave it O Pitta Katha the tagline It’s a long story... The project has been planned by director Chandrasekhar Yeleti.
The film is scheduled to release a day before Holi.