Telangana born stars making waves in Tollywood

Hyderabad: The Achampet-born Vijay Devarakonda, who is shattering box-office records with his latest release ‘Arjun Reddy’, announces the arrival of Telangana stars in mainstream Telugu cinema. He joins the bandwagon of other bankable stars like Nithiin, Nikhil and to some extent Nani who was born in Hyderabad and shrinking the space for Andhra-born stars. “We couldn’t have imagined such a scenario even just three years ago. May be new state and new aspirations are driving these actors to scale new heights.

Of course, we had a mainstream star Kanta Rao long back, but Telangana cinema was mostly identified with artistic and award-winning film like ‘Matti Manushulu’, ‘Daasi’ and ‘Komaram Bheem’ and revolutionary films like ‘Erra Sanyam’ and ‘Cheemala Dandu’, but now things are changing for better. So our stars are able to take centre-stage in mainstream Telugu cinema,” says Hyderabad-born producer-director Chandra Siddharth, with a glint of pride.

However, it was new-age filmmaker and Warangal–born Raj Kandukurri who revived the Telangana lingo in his blockbuster and national-award winning film ‘Pellichoopulu’. “The yaasa was mostly abused in mainstream Telugu cinema but we showed the beauty of the language in ‘Pellichoopulu’ and audience lapped it up,” he says and praises Sekhar Kammula for extending the charm of Telangana lingo in ‘Fidaa’.

“Sekhar took it to the next level and placed his characters in our region, while Sai Pallavi and Sai Chand swayed audience of their feet by mouthing dialogues in sweet language. These films minted money even in the Andhra region, showing that cinema has no regional barriers, only good content counts, irrespective of the lingo,” he adds.

Coming to raising popularity of gen-next stars like Nithiin who is rocking with hits like ‘Gundejari Gallanthaiyindey’ to ‘Aa Aa’ and Nikhil with a slew of hits from ‘Swamy Ra Ra’ to ‘Keshava’ have carved a niche for themselves in mainstream zone.

“Vijay is the new sensation to join these talented actors who proved that the Telangana region has its share of talented actors. Personally, I feel that only 5 per cent has been exploited, remaining 95 per cent has to be tapped. In fact, the most-happening star Nani’s next film ‘MCA’ is being shot in Warangal, suggesting that locations in Telangana have become favourite shooting spots these day,” Kandukurri concludes.