Sunday Special is the title of the upcoming Telugu film, written and directed by debutant filmmaker Anoop Chakravarthy Bajineni, actor Navdeep announced on social media on Thursday, while releasing the first look poster of the film.
Speaking to Silverscreen India, Bajineni calls Sunday Special a suspense drama. “The film takes place in a one day period and that happens to be a Sunday, hence the title. It revolves around a writer who has to write a story within 24 hours, and is about whether he achieves his goal and what he discovers through the process,” says the filmmaker, adding that the first look contains some clues to the plot. “As the poster suggests, behind every story, there is another story. That is the concept I’ve used.”
He mentions that the film has a non-linear screenplay. “We use a door in the film to cut from one story to the other. So the door acts as a transition between the storylines. We have also used guerrilla style of filmmaking.”
Bajineni, who used to work in the US in the cybersecurity field, tells us he pursued his passion for filmmaking by making short films in parallel. One of his short films, Enigma (2018), fetched awards in the 48 Hour Film Project. In 2019, he quit his job to pursue a full-time career in cinema. To this end, he took a crash course in filmmaking at the New York Film Academy before returning to India.
He wrote the script of Sunday Special in November 2020, soon after which the pre-production work started. A friend, Yagnik Puppala, took care of the production side of things, while he handled the creative aspects, says the filmmaker.
Puppala is credited as an executive producer, and the film is produced by another friend Ramakrishna Balusu and co-produced by Jyothy Bajineni, the director’s mother.
Sunday Special stars actors Reyansh and Nitya Shetty.
“I wanted a new face for the protagonist and so, we put out a casting call. Through it, I got in touch with Reyansh, who has earlier done a supporting role in a web series. We spoke at length about the film and character and I found him to be the right fit,” says the filmmaker.
He then reached out to Nitya after seeing her in O Pitta Katha (2020). “I wanted someone bubbly and she was my first choice. I pitched the story to her and sent her the bound script, after which she joined us.”
Sunday Special was shot in and around Hyderabad between January and March. The film is currently in the post-production stage and the team is working on the final edit. “The runtime is 90 minutes, including two songs composed by Shekar Chandra,” says Bajineni.
As for the release, the filmmaker says the team is still looking at the options, but their plan is for the film to premiere on an OTT platform.
