AR Rahman has announced his first project as a producer and writer. Titled 99 Songs, the film is a young, passionate love story with music at its soul, Rahman said in a tweet. The film will release worldwide in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on June 21, 2019.
The composer said that the film was a special venture for him and it will be produced by his company YM Studios in partnership with Jio Studios. The film has reportedly been in production since 2015.
A very special announcement @YM_Movies @offjiostudios @JioCinema @idealentinc pic.twitter.com/iIe6bcsSus
— A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) April 11, 2019
The film is a musical directed by Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy, who is an ad filmmaker best known for the TV series The Dewarists (season 1) and Bring On The Night. Ehan Bhat and Edilsy Vargas star in the lead. Rahman reportedly wrote on a Facebook post that they came on board after the team conducted auditions for over a 1000 people.
He also released a first look poster in 2017.
With your support & good wishes, I'm pleased to share my movie's first poster! https://t.co/F7KOZ0bRmv
— A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) March 9, 2016
Rahman has scored the background music and songs, and was initially also supposed to direct the film but was tied up with several projects in different languages. The movie will have 14-15 tracks in Hindi, Tamil and English. According to Huffpost, “The film is a sensual story about art and self-discovery of a struggling singer who wants to be a successful music composer.”
99 Songs is Rahman’s second film as a writer. He co-wrote the script and story of the 2011 film Le Musk with Sairaa, his wife. Le Musk was a film about perfumes, and was a pitched as a multi-sensory feature film. It was also Rahman’s first directorial, and was said to be the world’s first virtual reality movie.
Nora Arnezeder, Guy Burnet, Munirih Grace and Mariam Zohrabyan starred in the lead, and it was entirely shot in Rome in a span of 13 days. The film was produced by Karan Grover, in a collaboration between PVR and Rahman’s production house YM Movies. 8-10 VR lounges were also launched across the country for people here to watch the film.
AR Rahman has composed over 1000 songs for films and independent albums, with an estimated 200 million units sold worldwide. One of the three biographies on his life, written by Krishna Trilok, which released recently, focuses on Rahman’s works including One Heart, 99 Songs, and Le Musk.
