Days with an orang-utan

The team members of Appu and Pappu were excited on finishing their 35-day-shooting in Cambodia with an orang-utan. To share their shooting experiences, the team organised a press conference in a city hotel recently.

The director of the film is R Anantha Raju and the producer is Soundarya Jagadish. For the first time in Kannada cinema, an orang-utan will play the lead role. At the conference, Jagadish said, “The shooting of the film was supposed to start in November but we could not find an orang-utan, which is the lead character in the film. We visited Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand in search of a trained orang-utan but finally got one in Cambodia.

The shooting went well beyond our expectations and the ape co-operated in every way.”
“We were jealous as there were six trainers, two doctors and two managers to look after the ape. Although, initially we were afraid to touch the orang-utan, we felt sad later to bid farewell to this companion,” he said.

Director Anantha Raju described the journey as a thrilling experience and appreciated child artiste Snehith. “While  veteran actors were afraid to act with the huge ape, Snehith became a friend of the orang-utan in no time,” said the director. “The film is not just for children, everyone should see it,” he said. 

Actor Abbas, who is back in Sandalwood with the film, said, “When I went through the script, it sounded good, and I became part of it. I enjoyed each and every moment on the set as well as off it.” Hamsalekha, who scored music for the film, said, “I have composed five melodious songs, exclusively for the film, and Sonu Nigam and Shankar Mahadevan have crooned a song each in their rich voice.”

The story revolves around a boy and the orang-utan. Producer Soundarya Jagadish’s son Master Snehith is playing the lead role. The film also features Rekha, Komal Kumar, Madhuri, Jennifer Kotwal, Rangarayan Raghu and others. Sixty per cent of the movie was shot in Cambodia and the remaining 40 per cent will be done in Bangalore. The film will be released in May.