Praveen Kandregula on Directing Samantha's Debut Production 'Subham' and Why Writers Save Films

If his adored 2021 debut film Cinema Bandi showed his love for cinema, Praveen Kandregula’s upcoming film Subham will show what he can make of his love for cinema. Like its predecessor, Subham promises to immerse viewers in a fresh milieu.

Set in the early 2000s, the horror comedy follows the lives of three couples in a neighbourhood where the women seem to get routinely possessed at 9 pm like clockwork. The fact that a beloved TV soap runs at the same time doesn’t seem to be a coincidence.

Unlike many horror-comedies, Subham doesn’t rely on one-liner comedy, the director tells The Hollywood Reporter India in an interview. "Sometimes we write comedy for the purpose of comedy. Here, the content itself explores a quirky idea," he says, adding that the film will evoke innocent comedies from the era of movies from actors Rajendra Prasad and Jagapathi Babu, while staying in the zone of acclaimed modern horrors such as Amar Kaushik’s Stree (2018) and Jithu Madhavan’s Romancham (2023). The idea with Subham was also to make a film that families can finally enjoy. 

A still from the film.

How does the phenomenon of the Indian soap factor into the film, though? While staying tight-lipped about its plot, the filmmaker reveals that the cultural impact of television serials in the 2000s lent itself well to Subham’s madcap world.

"Our content had to go back to the era of serials like Antharangalu (a popular Telugu serial that starred Sarath Babu). Serials were a livelihood for women at the time. These serials were personal to homemakers, unlike today."

The film features actors Harshith Reddy, Gavireddy Srinivas, Charan Peri, Shriya Kontham,  Shravani Lakshmi, Shalini Kondepudi, and Vamshidhar Goud, and is written by Vasanth Maringanti. Subham reunites director Kandregula with Maringanti, following their association in Cinema Bandi.

"We understand each other very well. If you recall, there is this scene in Cinema Bandi where Veerababu (the auto driver) and Ganapathi (the photographer) discuss their film’s story. Vasanth and I share a similar vibe. We fight and argue a lot, but without Vasanth, I don't know how I'll survive,” he adds with a laugh. The duo worked on Subham’s script for six months before filming.

At a time when directors choose to work on their own scripts, Kandregula has a different approach. He believes it’s time writers got their due. "There are honest writers in this industry. But eventually, every writer wants to direct today because there is no money or credit for them anymore. Writing is quite different from direction. In Hollywood, they get their stories from a script or somewhere else, and very few people write and direct."

Instead, Kandregula believes writers should get top payment in a film’s pay scale. "Aren’t they the ones who save the film?" he wonders.

Subham also marks the debut production of actor Samantha Ruth Prabhu, who has backed the film under Tralala Moving Pictures, a collaboration that the team is thrilled by. "We had a workshop with Samantha and also did a long script discussion with her. She would always be on set but while giving us the creative freedom to do what we wanted," he says, pointing out that when actors turn producers, mid-sized films organically get an edge.

"If Subham didn't have Samantha, her people (fans) maybe wouldn't have gone to the film. Similarly, Court had Nani (the recent Telugu film was produced under the popular star's banner). Big stars have a good amount of money. If they put in even ₹1 crore of their remuneration, we can make a small film. It is a small amount of money for them, a big amount for us; the idea is for cinema to survive," he adds.