Gandhinagar Grapevine: Nov 6
A dream come true 
The journalists were a wee bit late for the press conference for the launch of Sanju weds Geetha. By the time the journos reached the location, most dignitaries had moved on to plant a couple of saplings in and around Kanteerava Studio.
Director Nagashekhar lost no opportunity to rope in journalists to plant a few spalings as well. The press conference began and a rather nostalgic Nagashekhar said, “My three and a half-year-old dream has finally materialised.
The budget seemed to have raised a lot of eyebrows but now a few of my classmates have offered to produce the film. I am excited. Kitti is the hero and Ramya, the heroine. Kitti plays an engineering graduate, who's scored the10th rank. Ramya's role is like Kalpana's in Sharapanjara.” The story takes place one evening in Bangalore at 5 pm at the former Central Jail-Maharani's area. It rains hard and there's no power, but lot of traffic. The story ends at 5 am next morning.
With the Central Jail shifted to Parappana Agrahara and the old building transformed into a Freedom Park, the producers and directors had no choice but to set up an artificial jail sets on the premises of the studio for which several trees had to be cut.
"There are four sets to be put in Ooty as well, for songs there would be seven more. There will be six songs composed by Jassie Gift and three fights by Ravivarma. The star cast is huge including Rangayana Raghu, Avinash, Umashri and Sharath to name a few.
The simple love story with an interesting twist requires Kitti to shed more weight in the second half. Cameraman is Satya Hegde. Sanju weds Geetha will be shot in 62 days.
When old age comes calling 
She’s had her stint in politics and now she’s moved on to explore her other areas of interest. Former minister and writer B T Lalitha Nayak is turning judge for the film Anandagokula, a commentary on the state of senior citizens in a contemporary
society.
The highlight of the film is its lead cast. Veerabhadrappa, a 98-year-old man and his 88-year-old wife Parvatamma, are the lead cast of Anandagokula.
The film revolves around a joint family. Veerabhadrappa has seven children and several grandchildren living under the same roof. “The film is built around two people and the problems they face. The issue of neglect, uncaring children and grandchildren and how ineffective the government can be in doling out the necessary soaps to the older people,” observes director Nagendra Rao. There are as many as 110 actors roped in for the film including Lalitha Nayak.
Rajan, of the music composer duo Rajan-Nagendra, is scoring the tunes for six songs. K K Dam is the cameraman.
The film will be shot in and around Bangalore while the songs will be shot in picturesque spots across the State. Omprakash Nayak, Anu, Suryakant, Chandrakanthi, Vasantha, Bank Janardhan, Doddanna, Rekha Das, Biradar, Karibasavaiah, Satyajit and others are in this film.
Remembering Shankar Nag
The story goes something like this... a village was celebrating a festival and an old woman gave a little boy Rs five to buy some jaggery to make him some sweet dish. On his way to the kirana shop, the boy spotted a film poster outside a cinema tent. He promptly went to watch the film and forgot all about the jaggery. The result was that there was no sweet at home that day.
Nagashekhar recalled this incident while interacting with the media during the launch of his film, Sanju weds Geetha. “We would have come across autos displaying old posters of actor Shankar Nag but most youngsters today have no clue who this veteran is. So, I have decided to introduce Shankar Nag to today’s generation through my film,” Nagashekhar says.
Nagashekhar began interacting with Shankar’s friends and acquaintances and managed to stack up a collection of the late icon's photographs. "I spoke to Arundhati Nag, who readily agreed to share some of the pictures and gave me some tidbits as well," says this Shankar fan, who has named his film and characters based on one of Shankar Nag's films.
Sanju weds Geetha team will be splicing Shankar's images saying story, music, camera and so on with the film credits! "That is a treat for Shankar fans," beams the director.
The film will be releasing in 2010, coinciding with the 20th death anniversary of Shankar. When talking about Shankar, can elder brother Anant Nag be left behind? “His reference will be there, but he is not acting in my film," Nagashekhar confirms.
