Filmmaker Vamsi Paidipally says that the success of his 2016 bilingual Oopiri (Telugu) / Thozha (Tamil) brought him the respect he wanted. Paidipally won a Filmfare award for the film recently, and said that it was special because he won it for a movie ‘close to his heart’.
“Even though I have been nominated for Filmfare in the past, winning it for Oopiri, a film that’s very close to my heart, made this award very special. It’s a good feeling to bring a lady (Filmfare statute) home,” he told IANS. “I grew up watching Filmfare Awards, and I still remember standing in long queue to buy passes to attend. Today, it feels nice to have won the coveted award and I will cherish this honour for a long time,” he added.
Oopiri earned five nominations for the Filmfare awards this year, including Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Karthi), Best Actor (Nagarjuna), Best Song (Oka Life) apart from the Best Director Award.
The film is a remake of Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano‘s French comedy-drama The Intouchables (2011), in which Nagarjuna plays a quadriplegic billionaire while Karthi plays his ex-convict caretaker. The film did well, grossing over Rs one billion worldwide.
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Paidipally, whose directorial debut was the Prabhas-starrer Munna in 2007, also confessed that Oopiri changed his life.
“The way I see life has changed. A lot of people struggle to find their inner happiness, despite being successful. Oopiri helped me discover my inner happiness. It changed me as a filmmaker and made me more responsible. It earned me immense respect from various quarters. Some of the messages and calls I received post the film’s release made me very emotional,” he said..
Paidipally has an untitled-film with Mahesh Babu in the pipeline.