Malli malli Idi Raani Roju

I lost everything I earned and also what my parents gave me,” says the director, whose ‘Malli Malli Idhi Raani Roju’ (MMIRR), starring Sharwanand and Nithya Menen, releases on Friday. However, looking back, he has no regrets. “When you are so passionate about something that you can’t eat or sleep, it’s better to get it done with. That is what I did with ‘Onamalu’,” he states.

“I was sure that I will survive even if I lose everything. I remember my father telling me, ‘Having eyes for money is one thing and living your dream is another.’

I had to live my dream,” he recalls. A post graduate in film studies, Kranthi worked in different media organisations before making his first film. “To be honest, I chose obs in a way that they gave me time to work on scripts.

It is the same reason I didn’t venture into journalism. I learnt filmmaking my way. In my opinion, to be a filmmaker one need not be qualified – he has to know cinema,” he says. Though ‘Onamalu’ received approval from most critics, there was a section that felt it was too preachy.

“I was a rank newcomer at that point of time; so obviously I was short on experience. The dialogues were good but too long. I didn’t know where to cut and what to cut,” says Melbourne-based Kranthi. As ‘Onamalu’ didn’t do well commercially, he waited long to get a producer for his next. “For someone to trust you, you have to be economically viable, right,” he asks us.

“After struggling to find a producer for months, there was a stage when my wife told me to come back. But I had no complains about it as I understood her emotions.” It was then that a rendezvous with Nithya Menen happened. “I reached out to her after ‘Onamalu’ released but in vain.

I was a bundle of nerves and had 100 things brewing in my mind when I confronted her with the script of ‘MMIRR’. I narrated the whole story ensuring no eye contact with her.” He continues, “After the narration she got up and said, ‘Kranthi we are doing it. It’s a wonderful story.’

Her response came as a surprise to me. She asked me who the producer was and I said that since she was on board now, I’ll figure that out. In fact, it was Nithya who put me across to producer KS Ramarao who also liked the subject.”

The next pit stop was Sharwanand who was his first choice for the role. “I was jumpy this time too. But he was very cool and made me extremely comfortable. He was like, ‘Don’t get nervous. The day is yours. I’m not going anywhere. Take your time to narrate it.’

I gave him a narration and he was impressed.” Shot in 60 days across Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Puducherry and Kuala Lumpur, the film is a love story. “There’s hardly a sequence where either of the lead characters – Rajaram (Sharwanand) and Nazira Khanum (Nithya Menen) – say ‘I love you’ to each other. They put across their feelings more through their eyes. It’s about eternal love and has nothing to do with religion,” he signs off.