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Dil Raju On Being A Patron Of Newcomers In Telugu Cinema And Creating a Roadmap for Producers
Cinema shaped his childhood; producer Dil Raju, in turn, reshaped Telugu cinema’s enduring pulse.
Dil Raju’s earliest memories of the movies involve cycling over 10 kilometres from his village to watch NT Rama Rao titles in Nizamabad in the ’70s. Before moving to Hyderabad in 1987 to run an automobile business with his brothers, Raju was putting up 16mm screens to project films for his village, pricing tickets at ₹1. This was his first real connection to cinema.
Film Fever
Moving to a city that made movie watching more accessible, he was able to hone this passion into something more tangible. “We would close our shop at 6.30 pm and rush to enter a 6.45 pm show,” he says, recalling how he would head home every Friday, full of joy for having watched a film in the theatre, and excuses for reaching home late. Some movies — Mani Ratnam’s Geethanjali (1989), Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) and Ashok Kumar’s Abhinandana (1988) — demanded excessive viewings. “I cannot tell you how many times I’ve watched these films in the theatres.”
It is this love for films that has backed every decision he has made for the last 22 years in the industry. And that includes making religious theatre runs every Friday for the past two decades. Last December, Raju was appointed the chairman of the Telangana Film Development Corporation (TGFDC), as part of which he is working to make Hyderabad a bustling film hub. It seems a fitting position for someone with such deep love for cinema.
Offices of distributors surrounded Raju’s automobile shop, perhaps a portend of the events to come for the future distributor and eventual producer. He knew then that he wanted to work with films and entered the industry as a distributor in the ‘90s. This not only gave him a ringside view of both successes and failures but made him all the surer that he wanted to eventually produce films. “Whichever films we purchased the rights for, I’d watch them only during the morning shows,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter India. “During one such screening, I realised we were putting in so much money and taking calculated risks, but I was still watching the film like part of the audience. I was gambling. That was when I felt the need to become part of the process and decided to foray into film production,” he says. He was done observing from the margins.
Movie Madness
Life as he knew it changed with V.V. Vinayak’s romantic action film Dil in 2003. The film, starring Nithiin, Neha, and Prakash Raj, was a blockbuster hit and bestowed upon him his eponymous prefix. “Dil is everything to me,” he says. “As a new producer, I was involved with everything.” And by everything, he means studying storyboarding, the flow of the screenplay, music, and so on.
“At the time, [director and screenwriter] V.V. Vinayak was also making Chiranjeevi sir’s Tagore. So, he gave me a free hand to handle certain aspects of filmmaking,” Raju says. “Until Dil, I knew what the audience wanted through my experience as a distributor. But Dil taught me the ins and outs of filmmaking.” The movie gave him a newfound understanding of cinema, the knowledge of which he applies to every film he backs, even today.
Raju’s love for romance and family dramas then led him to make two other era-defining films: Allu Arjun-starrer Arya (2004) and Siddharth-Genelia’s Bommarillu (2006). A montage from Arya of the lead characters enjoying the rain was all that was required for Raju to predict that romance in Telugu cinema would soon be slotted under tags ‘Before-Arya’ and ‘After-Arya’. The movie, Arjun’s breakout role, still enjoys a cult following among Telugu audiences.
Raju then began producing films starkly different from the prevailing formula in the market. “After the first few films of mine, I wanted to make family films with stars. Like Brindavanam (2010) with Jr. NTR; he was a mass hero until then, but [director] Vamsi showed him in a new role. We did the same with Prabhas. After SS Rajamouli’s Chatrapathi (2005), I tried Mr Perfect [a 2011 romantic drama] with him, which was in another dimension."
Soul Mates
Raju deploys what he calls the “soul-check” to see if his interpretation of a script’s soul matches with the filmmakers’. “Directors don’t come with a full script usually, but with whatever they narrate, I first try to cull out the soul of the story. I then ask the director what he thinks the film’s soul is. Then I see if what I understood matches with the answer,” he says.
With Balagam (2023) for instance, Raju immediately knew the film would work. “The film is reflective of the life I’ve seen and travelled with in Telangana,” Raju says. "When I listened to the story, I instantly connected with it. However, my daughter and wife did not connect with the story because of their urban upbringing. It was my cousin, Shirish, who had backed my decision."
The critically acclaimed film, despite being made on a small budget, grossed ₹26.3 crores in India. Sekhar Kammula’s hit film Fidaa (2017), about a staunchly independent woman’s journey to find true love, is an important film in the rise of Telangana cinema and represented the dialect and way of life in a mainstream format, post-bifurcation of the state.
“When Sekhar Kammula narrated Fidaa to me, I loved it because until then, stories that came out of Telangana were all revolutionary films not romances. I loved Bhanumati [Sai Pallavi’s character] and told Sekhar, ‘Let’s do it.’”
Friday Feeling
It’s important to travel with audience tastes, something that has changed drastically post the pandemic, the producer notes. “Before COVID-19, we used to review the audience pulse every five years, but now we do that every six months. We study our films. We do a timely analysis of what’s working and what is not.” This regular process, which is put into motion every Friday, is now a template in the company for everyone to follow.
Raju’s first-hand experience with the COVID-19 pandemic was with the Hindi remake of Gowtam Tinnanuri’s Jersey (2019). The Shahid Kapoor-Mrunal Thakur film, which marked Raju’s venture into Bollywood, faced delays and harsh realities. The film was shot under strict bio-bubbles to minimise the risk of infection in 2020. “Our priority was to take care of the crew and complete the schedules. We managed to finish shooting, but then the lockdown hit, and it was very stressful. With theatres operating at 50% occupancy, we struggled to lock a release date. Later, audiences returned to cinemas mainly for big tentpole films like RRR and KGF, and preferred OTT for other genres. As a result, our revenues took a hit.”
This year, the producer has already seen one massive hit (Sankranthiki Vasthunam, directed by his frequent collaborator Anil Ravipudi, who Raju thinks has an incredible eye for detail) and two misfires (Game Changer and Thammudu). Despite the mixed outcomes, his commitment towards audiences has remained the same. “Audiences give us money and time. So, we have to entertain and respect them. Within 24 hours of a film’s release, I will accept the success or failure of a film. If it doesn’t work, I will say ‘sorry’ and tell them I will learn from it. If the movie becomes a hit, I thank the audience for their love. Honesty and acceptance are the way forward,” he says, with a smile.
King of Hearts
Over the years, Raju, under his Sri Venkateswara Creations banner, has introduced several newcomers to the industry.
They’ve gone on to become stars of new-age Telugu cinema, such as Sukumar (Arya, 2004), Boyapati Srinu (Bhadra, 2005), Bhaskar (Bommarillu, 2006), Vamsi Paidipally (Munna, 2007), and most recently, Venu Yeldandi (Balagam, 2023). "After Dil, I started working with new directors, and Sukumar was the first one we introduced. Today, his success makes me extremely proud and happy. Over the years, we’ve introduced nearly 10 directors, and each of their successes feels like my personal success."
This year, he founded Dil Raju Dreams, a somewhat revolutionary platform to encourage people from all spheres of filmmaking. “Directors, producers, musicians, technicians, and actors can log into the website and send us their content. We got 350 story ideas; we have listened to 150 and are in the process of working on 20. I am creating a roadmap for producers.”
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