Mohanakrishna Indraganti turns the spotlight on the film industry once again

Director Mohanakrishna Indraganti holds forth on ‘Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali’, the second project in his trilogy on the film industry

For several Telugu film buffs, the trailer of writer-director Mohanakrishna Indraganti’s new film Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali ( I have to tell you about that girl), starring Sudheer Babu and Krithi Shetty, may have brought back memories of his 2018 film Sammohanam. Both stories are set within the film industry. This is the second in his trilogy on the film industry. “One can make a career out of narrating stories inspired by the film industry. I have met vibrant people working in the industry, hailing from different socio-economic backgrounds. From actors to lightmen and junior artistes, everyone has an interesting story,” the director says during this conversation in Hyderabad, minutes after carrying out the final post-production checks for the film that is scheduled to release in theatres on September 16.

The idea for Sammohanam had emerged in 2011 and in due course, Indraganti was enthused by the thought of a trilogy on cinema. Sammohanam was a romance drama between Sudheer Babu as a non-film person and Aditi Rao Hydari as an actor. It was also a commentary on the ways of the film industry, in the portions that involved the hero’s father who had nurtured a wish to act in films. Indraganti says that in Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali (AAGMC), Sudheer plays a director who is known for his mainstream commercial movies: “Krithi is an ophthalmologist who becomes his muse. He wants to cast her in his film but she and her parents despise the film world and have their reasons.” 

In a way, this story is Indraganti’s tribute to young women who fight with their families to pursue a career in cinema: “There is a lot of opposition in middle-class families when a girl says she wants to be an actress. In this story, the girl’s parents (Srikanth Iyengar and Kalyani Radhakrishnan) think the film world is morally depraved; the reasons that make them have such notions are revealed in the story. At one point Krithi’s character asserts that she wants to act and it leads to conflict.”

The story touches upon the issue of the casting couch, says the director: “You cannot make a film on the industry and not refer to the issue. We address it in passing, in a constructive manner without passing moral judgments on the choices made by women who are put in a tight spot.” 

Indraganti says the film industry is a microcosm of the world at large but exploitation is more in focus since cinema is a public art form. “The #MeToo movement exposed the exploitation in several other professions, including university professors. Since cinema shows the intimacy between characters on screen, people assume that actors have no inhibitions in real life as well.”

The #MeToo movement may not have solved all the problems faced by women in the film industry, but things are looking up, reckons Indraganti: “Predators are aware that they cannot get away easily. We are also seeing more women in different departments, including direction and production. When women have decision-making powers, they understand the plight of other women and the overall work atmosphere gets better. The assumption that women are available merely because they are working in the film industry is changing.”

The process of showing a film within a film fascinates Indraganti: “It is a ‘meta’ idea. I have cast real lightmen as lightmen for the film that is shown in the story. Actors are also acting in a film within a film.”