Director Dinakar Thoogudeepa has directed his brother and Sandalwood star Darshan in a couple of films in the past and looks like he will be wielding the megaphone for Darshan again. These earlier ventures – Navagraha and Saarathi – did well at the theatres, and Dinakar has surprised those in the film industry now by registering the title Shivanandi. Apparently, the director chose the title after the song ‘Shivanandi’ from Darshan’s previous release, Yajamana, went on to become a chartbuster.
While the groundwork for this project is on and we can expect more details soon, Darshan is expecting the release of the magnum opus Kurukshetra. The film was announced as Darshan’s 50th film but could not hit the silver screens on time due to extensive post-production work. The star plays Duryodhana in this mythological based on the epic Mahabharata and the story is told from his perspective. One of the most expensive films to ever be made in the Kannada film industry, Kurukshetra is bankrolled by Muniratna under his banner KCN Movies. The film also has Ambareesh, Arjun Sarja, V Ravichandran, Bharathi Vishnuvardhan, Sneha, Hariprriya, Meghana Raj and P Ravi Shankar in pivotal roles.
Kurukshetra, which is directed by Naganna, has an impressive technical crew as well. Jayanan Vincent has cranked the camera for this film with Jo Ni Harsha doing the editing. Being a high budget film and a mythological, plans are on to release it in various languages including Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and others.
The shooting for Kurukshetra commenced last year on the sets erected for the purpose at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. Most parts of the film were shot on this set, which was built on a budget of about several crores of rupees. The shooting for this film was completed long ago but it has been in the post-production mode due to the extensive VFX work involved.
(Content provided by Digital Native)