After long break Suneel Puranik to put on make-up for Aana

Bengaluru: Actor, director and producer Suneel Puranik is back on big screen with the new film Aana which is popularly known as India's first-ever female superhero film starring Aditi Prabhudev in lead. Suneel Puranik, who is currently serving as the chairman of the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy, will play a loving father to Aditi Prabhudev in Aana.

Speaking to Hans India, Suneel Puranik said, "I have taken a break for nearly one-and-a-half years from acting to concentrate on directing a film and drawing up a few things I wanted to achieve during my tenure as chairman of the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy.

When the offer for this movie came, I couldn't say no as I felt the role is quite challenging. In Aana, my character has different shades which will be seen in the supporting character of father to Aditi. The bond between the father and the daughter and how they face a situation in their own ways form the essence of the characters."

The movie is being directed by debutant Manoj P Nadalumane and produced by Pooja Vasanth Kumar. While Uday Leela is handling the cinematography, Rithwik Muralidhar will be composing the music. Aana will be a female superhero. Aditi plays a regular girl before getting to know her past and her superpowers. How she makes use of her abilities and rises will be the theme of the film. It will bring in elements of horror and fantasy.

"As we all know that there are a lot of powers that are invisible, so this element is also one such character in the film as a superpower.

I play a father character who as an individual routinely engages in superstitious behaviours, which have scientific reasons behind them. There will be many conflicts in the characters. Finally, a superwoman rises out of those conflicts. Director Manoj P Nadalumane, who had experience of working in many short films, has now come up with a new concept for the Sandalwood audience. It is a complete edge-of-the-seat entertaining storyline," Suneel Puranik added.

As KCA chairman, Suneel Puranik has dedicated an entire floor of the building to an archive to preserve and chronicle the history of Kannada cinema through film prints, songs, articles, reviews and scripts and screenplays.

The film archives and the museum are expected to come up at the KCA headquarters at Nandini Layout. According to the reports, the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Pune, has agreed to support the KCA in establishing full-fledged archives of its own.