Director Lakshman K Krishna awaits the theatrical release of 'Swathi Muthyam' on October 5. In this interview, the debutant filmmaker talks about working with debutant Ganesh Bellamkonda, actress Varsha Bollamma and others.

He says that the film is a family drama that is rightly getting released for Dasara. The director also talks about producers S Naga Vamsi and S China Babu of Sithara Entertainments.

Excerpts:

I am basically from East Godavari, where I grew up and studied. I used to pen dramas and skits during my school days. In Kakinada, I formed a group with three others to do short films. While studying Engineering, I moved to Hyderabad. All four of us joined as ADs under a filmmaker here in Tollywood. For some reason, I left the collaboration and joined a YouTube media house, for which I did a short film on a shoestring budge in 2016. 'Krishnamoorthi Garintlo' was made as a short film with a budget of more than Rs 3.5 lakh. Appaji Ambarish acted in a key role. It became a big hit in terms of views. I bagged the Best Director Award at the Sainma Short Film Awards.

I later did a feel-good love story named 'Sadaa Mee Premalo' with a duration of an hour. That was during the lockdown. It was made on a budget of Rs 12 lakh. It was recently released on MX Player. It received appreciation from those who watched it.

'Swathi Muthyam' started to be written in 2020 during the pandemic lockdown. The plot has no similarities with any movie. The humour is slice-of-life. The situations, conversations, and reactions of the characters are the way they are in real life.

Bala Muralikrishna is the name of Ganesh's character in the movie. He comes from a small town and lands a government job. He is well settled, his parents believe. His parents start looking for matches. What is presumed to be a simple thing turns out to be a complicated affair.

Ganesh really loved the story when he listened to my narration. I later pitched the narration to his father, Bellamkonda Suresh.

After listening to the story, producer China Babu garu felt that the story has got no negative characters and since most of them are innocent, he suggested 'Swathi Muthyam' as the title. The very title conveys the innocent streaks of the main characters.

We did workshops before taking the film on the floors. Since this is my first feature-length film, Ganesh and I wanted to be confident about ourselves.

Trivikram Srinivas garu hasn't watched the movie yet. But he had read the entire script from page to page. He appreciated me for coming up with a nice conflict plot point. Producer S Naga Vamsi anna gave me the right team of technicians.

I chose Varsha Bollamma after watching '96'. I wrote the character keeping her in mind. I told the same to Ganesh and Sithara Entertainments. By then, 'Middle Class Melodies' was a hit on OTT. So, she was seen as the right choice by everyone. She is a naughty girl and Ganesh is a naive, timid guy.

This is a family entertainer and therefore, a festival-time release is the right one. It's true that our film is going to come out when 'Godfather' and 'The Ghost' will also be in the fray. There will be competition. But I am excited.

I have no plans for my next project. Let my first film be released first. I am interested in a comedy thriller or a drama. I have got a couple of ideas in mind, though. I have always been inspired by Mani Ratnam, Bapu, Jandhyala and the likes.