Director Kranthi Madhav is all smiles as his recent film Malli Malli Rani Raju is all set for success. The film that released a few days back has already won critical acclaim. But it has been a long journey to success for the director. A native of Khammam, Kranthi never wanted to be a filmmaker in his childhood. “I completed my masters in mass communication in Manipal University in 2002. My professor A.F. Mathews influenced me a lot. He taught me about filmmaking,” says Kranthi Madhav adding that otherwise he would have ended up as a journalist.
“Once I got interested in the art, I reached Hyderabad and started trials,” he says. He never worked under any other director but has been associated with a few production houses. “I worked with Priya Dutt (Ashwini Dutt’s daughter) for two of her films, in direction and in marketing,” says the director. And after working for a while in other companies he started working on his own. Kranthi got married in 2007 and his wife, a PhD in economics who teaches at Victoria University, stays in Australia. “I come to India whenever I direct a film. Once the film is completed I go to Australia to see my family,” says Kranthi. “I don’t want to disturb my wife as she wants to stay in Australia. I am lucky that my family understands me,” says the father of one.
After narrating subjects to a few actors, Kranthi decided to make a film on his own. “That’s how I started my first film Onamalu,” he says. Kranthi does not follow the song-dance-action formula and he owes it to his inspirations like Guru Dutt, T. Krishna and Balachander “Look around, 99 per cent people fall in love, but not all of them get married to the person they love. And even though marriages happen we see many break-ups. True love happens to only one per cent of people,” he says. And this was what the movie is based on. “I am happy that I finally tasted success with this film,” he says.
However, there is one regret. His mother passed away while he was shooting for this film. “I don’t know if it’s a coincidence. When I was shooting the scene where Sharwanand’s mother dies in the film, my mother too succumbed to cancer,” says Kranthi adding, “She really wanted to see me succeed.” He is now “working on a subject and on completion will leave to Australia”. Kranthi will return after the film’s dates are decided.
