Biopic of a common man!

Dr Altaf Hassan will be seen comedy-drama 'Battala Ramaswamy Biopikku', which is set in a rural background. Playing the titular role Dr Altaf Hassan holds a PhD in Theatre Arts from the University of Hyderabad.

As a Theatre Arts practitioner, he was involved in practising and training in performing arts for the last 18 years across India with a special focus on Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He is associated with the premier theatre institute of India the National School of Drama (NSD, Delhi) and other such reputed national organisations, initially as a student participating in various workshops and conferences conducted by them and presently training the students besides assisting the faculty. He has been participating in many international conferences conducted by IFTR (International Federation for Theatre Research) and other national and international organisation.

Before enrolling for a PhD, he used to conduct short term courses in acting, workshops for voice, speech and personality development, also trained anchors of some Telugu news channels like Sakshi, ABN, etc. He has worked as an Associate Professor in Ramanaidu film school and ISFM (International School of Film and Media) in Hyderabad. At present, he is working as a guest faculty at Ramoji Academy of Film and Theatre (RAFT) and also has been teaching theatre at different institutions, colleges and schools in twin cities.

He is also the founder president of the organisation called CAMS (Centre for Arts, Media and Social welfare). Besides promoting theatre arts, the organisation works for social development particularly of underprivileged sections of the society

About his role in the film, Dr Hassan says, "Ramaswamy is kind and a true gentleman with two ambitions one is to have only one wife just like Lord Rama and the second is to have his own saree business. But destiny has some other plans. Ramaswamy falls in love with Jayaprada, a pearl jewellery seller and marries Jayaprada against his father will and they both start a new life. Jayapradha helps Ramaswamy to start his saree business by pawning her gold chain. Due to unavoidable situations, Ramaswamy marries two other women and faces problems due to differences between three wives and the debts left behind by his father."

Dr Altaf Hassan met many villagers for the preparation of his role.

"I have gone through a lot of YouTube videos about village lifestyle. I have observed many things like how they behave while doing their activities and business, etc. I have prepared notes according to the character and discussed with my director Ram Narayan and applied his feedback to my character and practised every day.

Dr Hassan says that he follows 'Meissner and Meyerhold Biomechanics' of acting.

About working with cast and crew he says: "It was a wonderful experience especially with my director Ram Narayan. He made everyone comfortable and that's most important to any project. Shanthi Rao, Satvika Jay and Lavanya Reddy are wonderful performers and every day we practised our script before going on sets that made it easy while facing the camera."

Future projects

"There is another movie 'RaallaloNeeru' (Hidden Waters) it's an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen 'Dolls House' directed by Kiran Indraganti. It has been nominated in 12 Inter National Film Festivals and got three international Awards. There are two more movies in which I'm doing as lead, one is a Hindi crime thriller for Netflix. Other projects have been stalled due to Corona and I hope they will resume soon," Dr Altaf Hassan signs off.