Vice President Venkaiah Naidu launched the much-awaited biopic of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP founder NT Rama Rao in Hyderabad on Thursday.
The film was launched at the Ramakrishna Studios in Hyderabad.
Speaking at the event, Naidu said, "I was very happy to receive an invite from actor-politician Nandamuri Balakrishna (NTR's son) and assured him that I will visit no matter how busy I am. Anyway, Parliament is not functioning even though it’s working. Everyone knows that. However, that is another issue."
The Vice President was all praise for the late actor-politician, saying that his portrayal of Lord Krishna and Lord Vishnu would frequently come to mind.
He also spoke about how NTR championed the cause of the Telugu people and stressed on the importance of preserving the language and the culture.
According to reports about the film doing the rounds, director Teja has begun shooting the early days of NTR, tracing his childhood from even before he became an actor.
NTR, in the year 1947, was a government employee in Madras but he quit the job within a month after he got an opportunity to act in BA Subba Rao’s Palletoori Pilla.
The film will begin on that note and then move forward to narrate the meteoric rise of the late actor-turned-politician. The movie will be shot simultaneously in Telugu and Hindi. It will later be dubbed in Tamil and other south Indian languages as well.
It may be mentioned here that Balakrishna has a special interest in this biopic as it is about his late father, NT Rama Rao.
NTR was not only an actor par excellence but also an able politician. He launched his own political party, the TDP, and went on to serve as the Chief Minister of AP.
The biopic will have Balakrishna playing the title role. Teja will be wielding the megaphone for this venture, and it is being produced jointly by Balakrishna, Sai Korrapati and Vishnu Vardhan Induri.
It may be recalled here that director Ram Gopal Varma had initially said that he would make a biopic on NTR and that it would revolve around the people who had betrayed him. However, the film did not materialise for various reasons.
On the other hand, the Teja-directorial will be a thoroughly researched product. According to sources, Balakrishna wants to include some very important details and incidents that had happened in his father’s life which have remained hidden from the public till date.
This will make the biopic an interesting watch, say sources. While there are various reports about the actors in the film, the team will announce the rest of the star cast and crew officially soon.
(With Digital Native inputs)