Actor Amala Paul, who was last seen in Netflix’s Telugu anthology Pitta Kathalu, is all set to star in an upcoming Telugu web series titled Kudi Yadamaithe. The actor and the makers of the show announced the project and shared the first look video on social media on Saturday.
The series, produced by the People Media Factory banner, is set to stream on the Aha platform.
The show’s director Pawan Kumar is known for directing the Kannada psychological thriller Lucia (2013). Kudi Yadamaithe marks his second project in Telugu after the Tamil-Telugu bilingual mystery thriller U-Turn in 2018.
Speaking to Silverscreen India about the upcoming show, Pawan says, “Kudi Yadamaithe is a sci-fi thriller where Amala Paul plays a cop. Rahul Vijay essays the role of a food delivery person. The story is about what happens when their lives crash into each other. The show will have some fantasy elements.”
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He adds that the teaser will be released soon and will provide some more insight into the show.
The director says the script of Kudi Yadamaithe was written by Ram Vignesh and Aha approached him to direct it. “I found the script engaging. So, we got the actors onboard, kickstarted the shooting by the end of November 2020 and completed it this March.”
The shooting took place in Hyderabad and the series’ eight episodes run for about 30-35 minutes each, he adds.
On casting Amala Paul, Pawan says, “We were looking for an actress who could pull off the cop character with tough looks, and Amala has always been fit and has very powerful eyes. When we sent her the script, she was excited about the genre and team. She was our first choice to play the no-nonsense, tough cop.”
The director adds that they looked at the portfolios of many young men for the delivery person role but liked Rahul’s picture the best. “It was only later that I found out Rahul had already acted in a couple of films. He is a young and enthusiastic actor. I enjoyed working on his portion of the series a lot,” he says.
Pawan reveals that he conducted scripting reading sessions over Zoom calls in October 2020 to familiarise the team with the script. Script reading was not a common practice before the pandemic, he says. “It used to be hard to get everyone in the same room. However, video conferencing has brought actors and filmmakers together. Amala was in Cochin, I was in Bangalore, and Rahul was in Hyderabad. It was nice that we could work on the same series from different states.”
Pawan, who has also worked on the Netflix series Leila, thinks that OTT platforms and web series give filmmakers the time to explore the characters in depth and add a lot of detailing. “The audience is willing to commit to a longer period of watching a single show,” he says.
Music composer Poornachandra Tejaswi, who had collaborated with Pawan in Lucia and U-Turn, has scored the background music for the series too. “There are no songs, but it has got a trippy background score which matches the tone of the sci-fi thriller,” the director says.
Kudi Yadamaithe is in the final stages of post-production and the show will be released on July 16.