20th November 2003

Sekhar Kammula - the director of Dollar Dreams - is making his second film 'Anand' on his home banner 'Amigo Creations'. NFDC is giving 50% of the funding to this film and it is also presenting this film. Here are the details of 'Anand'.

The film:

Anand extends to the audience the philosophy of romanticizing the simple things in life. It deviates from the larger-than-life love stories and intends to capture moments, events, and feelings of real people, in a real world, but with a dreamlike narration. It attempts to bring a breath of fresh air to Telugu cinema.

This film hopes to take people back to the days of simple and enchanting cinema, the kind that was held dear by legends such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Its lilting music contributes to the mood of the film, and is sure to leave audiences with pleasant memories and hummable tunes.

NFDC's Involvement:

The National Film Development Corporation of India was established to encourage good cinema in the country. It's primary goal is to promote an integrated and efficient development of the Indian film industry, and to foster excellence in cinema. Over the years, NFDC has funded/produced more than 300 films in various Indian languages. The films have been widely acclaimed and have won several national and international awards.

The NFDC is known for backing art/ parallel cinema, and has supported the efforts of directors such as Shyam Benagal, Ketan Mehata, Meera Nair, Aparna Sen and Govind Nihalani. By associating with Anand, NFDC is joining hands with Sekhar to make a wholesome Telugu entertainer.

From NFDC:

Sunit Tandon is presently the General Manager of the NFDC. Other posts he has held in the past include Deputy Director in the Directorate of Film Festivals, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Deputy General Manager of NFDC, heading the regional office of the corporation at New Delhi, and director of the 10th International film festival for children and young people at Hyderabad in November 1997.

Simultaneously, he is senior news and current affairs anchor on doordarshan, and a broadcaster on All India Radio. At various stages in his career, he has also been a banker, a theatre critic and a music critic.

He has been associated with theater as an actor and director. He has acted in over 80 productions, and has directed more than 20 productions, including plays by William Shakespeare, Jean Racine, George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Niel Simon, Tom Stoppard, and Indian writer such as Gurcharan Das, Poile Sengupta and Nicholas Kharkongor.

The director:

Sekhar Kammula graduated from Osmania University in Mechanical Engineering, and completed his Masters degree in computer science in the US. He worked in the IT industry for about 3 years before joining film school for his MFA (Film) degree at Howard University, Washington DC. During this time, he worked on a number of films (short and feature length) in Hollywood and otherwise in various capacities, as a production assistant, continuity person, gaffer, assistant director, cinematographer, and director.

His first film Dollar Dreams, was an issue-based film about the exodus of software professionals from Hyderabad, in search of big dollars. Dollar Dreams bagged the prestigious National Award (Swara Kamal) for the best film by a director in the year 2001. The film was screen in the Mumbai film festival and was distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.

Chandra Sekhar Kammula, Sekhar's brother, is the joint Managing Director of Amigos Creations, and was co-produce of Dollar Dreams.

The Cinematographer:

Vijay Kumar has more than twenty years of experience in the field of cinematography. He has worked with stalwards like Satyajit Ray and assisted renowned cameraman Lok Singh for about five years. He has been the cameraman for a number of blockbusters in Telugu. He has to his credit films like Ammoru, Ankusam, Agraham and Prema Pallaki, among others. His special-effect photography for Ammoru placed him amongst the top cinematographers in the state.

The Actors:

Kamalinee Mukherjee is originally from Kolkota, from where she moved to Mumbai to take part in an acting workshop. In the span of a year, she has been part of many high profile advertising campaigns, some of them directed by Prahlad Kakkar, such as Neelkamal furniture, Parachute hair oil, Fair and Lovely, and Ayush hair shampoo. This will be Kamalinee's second feature - she makes her debut in Revathy's as-yet untitled film, co-starring Shilpa Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan and Salman Khan.

Raja is an upcoming film star down South. He has had a lot of experience doing films such as O Chinnadana, Vijayam and Appudappudu. Raja has also been involved in acting workshops in the US. He is currently acting in one of the biggest projects in the Telugu film industry, called Arjun, co-starring Mahesh Babu and Keerthi Reddy.

Press meet details:

NFDC's GM Sunit Tandon said that people do misunderstand NFDC's films as art, depressing, rural films. He mentioned that NFDC co-produced film like Gandhi, which entered and won even Oscar award. NFDC also produced entertainment oriented project like 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'. He said that script of 'Anand' is entertaining and refreshing. He said NFDC is open to all filmmaker to approach them and get their projects funded.

Director Sekhar Kammula said that 'Anand' was his thesis script at Howard University. He said that it's a simple with romantic touch. Shooting of this film would start on 30th of November and would be completed in a single schedule spanning 60 days . This film would have 6 songs. Sekhar said that he wanted to cast a Telugu speaking Telugu girl in Anand, but could not find a girl who is willing to act in Telugu films though he searched all most all colleges in Hyderabad. Hence he opted for a non-Telugu girl Kamalinee Mukherjee. And she is given the bounded script and a crash course on Telugu language. 'Anand' is expected to release in Summer of 2004.

Actor Raja said that he came from theater background. And Anand is a true to life film. He said he was very much interesting working directors like Sekhar Kammula and accepted the proposal with out even reading the script once Sekhar approached him. He also added that every woman's dream would be having a man in their life like 'Anand'.

Co-producer Anish Kuruvilla said that Sekhar Kammula is making a film that a regular commercial Telugu film producer cannot relate with. He said that Anand would be reminding us the golden oldies made by Rishikesh Mukherjee. He also mentioned that Telugu films are taking the middle class core values away from them by showing unrealistic world. He said that Anand would focused more on core value system of middle classes.