The shooting of Arjuna Phalguna, the upcoming Telugu film starring actors Sree Vishnu and Amritha Aiyer, has been wrapped up, the makers of the film announced in a social media post on Tuesday.
The film is written and directed by filmmaker Teja Marni and backed by Niranjan Reddy and Anvesh Reddy under the Matinee Entertainment banner.
Speaking to Silverscreen India, Teja, who has previously helmed Johaar (2020), said about his upcoming directorial, “It is a caper comedy that will completely revolve around friendship. It is about a person who gets stuck in a problem, and how his friends go to extreme lengths to save him. The film is set in East Godavari and Rajamundry.”
“When I saw news of farmers trapped in debt and dying by suicide, and on the other side, there are people like Vijay Mallya, cruising in London with their loans waived off, it triggered me. I kept this as the base and wrote a commercial script with entertainment value. While the first half will be out-and-out hilarious entertainment, the second half will be an emotional trip with action and chases. The actors ran about 4-5 km every day for the shoot,” the filmmaker said, adding that there is also something related to farmers in the upcoming film.
Teja began working on the script of Arjuna Phalguna soon after he finished his first film. “In May-June of last year, I began to write the story and the pre-production work took place in October.”
The film went on floors in December 2020 with a 30-day schedule. After a break, they resumed with a 20-day schedule in March and later wrapped up the shoot in Hyderabad in October. Arjuna Phalguna has been shot by cinematographer Jagadeesh Chekati. Locations include Vizag, mainly the East Godavari district, Orissa, and Hyderabad, the filmmaker revealed.
Apart from the main leads, other cast members include Subbaraju, Naresh, Mahesh Achanta, Chaitanya Garikipati, and Rajkumar Kasireddy. “Most of them are from East Godavari, so we could get the dialect right. Sree Vishnu, Mahesh Achanta, Rajkumar Kasireddy, and I all hail from the place,” the director mentioned.
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The film is currently in the post-production stage, with dubbing in progress. The music of Arjuna Phalguna is composed by Priyadarshan Balasubramanian, in his second collaboration with the filmmaker. There are seven songs in the film, all situational, the director noted.
Explaining how the title was chosen, Teja said, “In mythology, Lord Arjuna has many names and one of them is Phalguna. Whenever we were afraid of anything as children, for example, during a thunderstorm, my grandmother used to chant ‘Arjuna Phalguna’. It is meant to give one courage. When Vishnu garu and I were sitting together once, it was raining heavily and I told him what my grandmother used to say. He found it interesting and we decided to keep it as the title.”
The director added that the makers are planning for a theatrical release in December. “It will be my first film to release in theatres since the last one had an OTT premiere.”