`Payanam' is an upcoming bilingual movie produced in Tamil and Telugu simultaneously by Prakash Raj and Dil Raju under his newly created banner Silent Movies. The Telugu version is called `Gaganam'. With a tagline "Fasten your seat belts. For the light of your life!' the film will be introducing a new thriller genre to Tamil audience.

The film is inspired from infamous `Kandahar Hijack`, which is about the Indian Airlines Flight 814 hijack to Kandahar from Kathmandu by a terror group in 1999. In that event hard core terrorists were officially released by the then Indian government in exchange of the passengers and the incident was termed India's `diplomatic failure'

Prakash Raj is said to have read the book `Flight into Fear' written by the pilot of the hijacked plane Captain Devi Saran and after reading the drama, tension and horror of those eight days inside the aircraft, as it flew from Kathmandu to Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and finally Kandhahar, he decide to make it a film.

In the film version, a flight from Chennai is hijacked and force landed in Tirupathi by terrorists. Telugu super star Nagarjuna, Prakash Raj and Sana Khan are the key players in the film.

Nagarjuna is playing a commando who is waiting to rescue the passengers by storming the plane and Prakash Raj plays a bureaucrat from the Prime Minister's Office who is out to negotiate a peaceful release. Sana Khan is a passenger on the flight. Others include Manobala, MS Bhasker, Rishi and Badava Gopi.

Radha Mohan has worked the script taking the core knot of the hijack episode and has woven an adventure thriller. It will be interesting to see how a writer-director known for soft romances like `Azhagiya Theeye', `Abhiyum Naanum' and `Mozhi' has handled this action adventure.

As the major portion of the film happens in the airport, a Tirupathi Airport replica costing 3 crores was created at Ramoji Rao film city in Hyderabad by art director Kathir.

Also the creative team is set to have met two families in Trichy who were onboard the plane and added a lot of human emotional angles after hearing their real life experiences.

The cinematography is by KV Guhan and Pravin Mani has scored the background music. There is just one song in the film written by Madan Karky.

The official trailer of the film was released on January 14 and it has it has generated enough curiosity riding on the Pongal new releases.

`Payanam' is scheduled to begin its flight on February 4.