Hyderabad: Debutant director Sriram Adittya says he bonded like a brother with actor Sudheer Babu, who plays the lead in the forthcoming Telugu entertainer “Bhale Manchi Roju”. “I’d imagined Sudheer as a very strict and serious person. Therefore, I assumed it won’t be easy to get along with him. Nevertheless, we hit it off quite well and bonded like brothers. It was so much fun working with him,” Adittya told IANS.

On working with Sudheer, the 26-year-old director, who comes from an engineering background, said it was delightful. “I usually take several takes before locking a shot. One of the scenes with Sudheer actually took us 14 takes, not because he wasn’t getting it right but I wanted it to be perfect,” said Adittya, adding that Sudheer was extremely patient throughout the course of the shoot. He also said that the audiences will get to see Sudheer in a role sans heroism.

“This story doesn’t require the hero to be all macho. The focus is on the character he plays. This is a story of 12 important characters and I’ve given all my actors equal screen space.” Unable to categorize the film in any particular genre, Adittya says the film’s story unfolds in a day. “It’s a story that takes place within a span of 12 hours — from morning to evening. It has shades of crime and comedy. It’s a screenplay-based film that’ll be very different from the regular crop of films,” he said.

Featuring an ensemble cast of Wamiqa Gabbi, Dhanya Balakrishna, Saikumar, Posani Krishna Murali and Paruchuri Gopala Krishna, the film is produced by Vijay Kumar Reddy and Sashidhar Reddy. Before wielding the megaphone, Adittya was working with companies such as Google and Facebook. He says that with basic ground knowledge about filmmaking, it isn’t difficult to enter the industry. “Today, the industry doors are open to everybody. If you know what it takes to make a film and join hands with the right people, you can become a director. You also have to learn to be extremely patient, positive and have the right attitude,” he said.

The film’s title means ‘what a good day’, and Adittya recalls how a bad day turned good on the sets. “We had to shoot a song in the rain. We were ready to start shooting, but we were told that we couldn’t get water tankers. It left us so disappointed, and then it poured cats and dogs out of the blue. With the help of cinematographer Shamdat, we managed to shoot in the rain. It came out so well,” he said.

Mumbai: Controversial actress Poonam Pandey says she will share a “sizzling” video on December 25 with her loyal Twitter fans. Joined in February 2011, she has as many as 7,18,057 followers on the micro-blogging site.

“My fans have been so brilliant since the time I joined Twitter. They have supported and praised me throughout. But their complaint is that I don’t upload videos regularly. So, I thought of sharing a very sexy video and what occasion could be better than Christmas.

“My aim is to make it more sizzling than my last yoga blockbuster video and I’m hoping it gets far more hits than that,” the “Nasha” actress, who had released the video earlier this year, told IANS.

Akkineni hero Nag is usually in the habit of releasing his films during December. He does it to avoid film release rush during Sankranthi time. He has studiously avoided Sankranthi release and was lucky to make profits from his December releases. But, this time around, he is releasing his Soggade Chinni Nayana during the upcoming Sankranthi.

And, he did this despite knowing fully well that two Nandamuri titans are clashing this Sankranthi. Balayya’s Dictator and NTR’s Nannaku Pramatho are releasing. Why is Nagarjuna, who always asks the producers to avoid confrontation through multiple releases, releasing his film.

He justifies his decision saying this is an out and out festival film and has already decided to release it in the Sankranthi. He is also confident that his film will be a hit despite the competition. The positive talk around this film is proving to be a threat to other films. So, how will Nandamuri heroes take on this Soggadu.

Mumbai: Indo-Canadian actress Lisa Ray, known for films like “Water” and “Bollywood/Hollywood”, says that in India, she didn’t get the credit for being a trained actress. “My only complaint is that in India, I never got enough credit for being a trained actress because most of my acting career has been outside of India for the last few years. And I’ve actually done very serious roles,” Lisa, an alumna of the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, said at the trailer launch of “Ishq Forever” on Saturday.

“I’m very frank about the fact. I’m 43 and I started my career very young and I have gone through many different transitions and taken very individualist choices,” added the actress, who had even put up a brave fight against cancer a few years back. She believes the film industry is going through “such an interesting period right now”.

“The stories and roles have dramatically shifted since the 1990s. So, I’m just grateful to maybe play a small role in that and I love India so, I’m between here and Hong Kong. I consider myself very Indian because I moved to India when I was 16,” she added.

Asked if after “Ishq Forever”, she intends to do more Hindi films, she said: “I never plan anything. What I learned from my recent experiences is to take life as it comes. Post-cancer, I’m just full of gratitude for everything that life has to offer.” “I was a little nervous, it’s been a long time since I have been in a Hindi film. Every actor gets nervous. You wonder if you can still do it,” she added.

Sharwanand’s film Express Raja will be releasing on Sankranti. Surabhi of Beeruva fame is playing the female lead while Merlapaka Gandhi of Venkatadri Express is the director.

It seems that the word “Raja” is working for Sharwanand and that’s why this film’s title too has the word. The actor had got his first big break with the film Run Raja Run.The film’s audio is slated to release on December 19.

The actor, meanwhile, will be in the race with two biggies, Balakrishna and his nephew Jr NTR, as both their films are also releasing on Sankranti.

Superstar Rajinikanth’s sequel to Robo, which was recently announced, will hence forth be called 2.0, and it also happens to be the official title of the film. Lyca Productions, the makers of the project, have confirmed that it will made on a budget of Rs 350 crore, making it India’s biggest motion picture in terms of budget and, hence, superceding SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali in the process.

Speaking after meeting the press in Chennai earlier this week, a representative from Lyca said that the production cost of the film will be around Rs 350 crore. He also said that they are confident about recovering the investment, thanks to the combination of Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar, who was brought into the project in place of The Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Double Oscar-winning composer A R Rahman has been roped in to compose the tunes, while Nirav Shah will crank the camera. The visual effects work will be taken care by Srinivas Mohan, who had earlier worked in Baahubali.

Star comedian Brahmanandam has been struggling to live up to expectations of late as the writers and directors are letting him down with poorly written characters. Brahmanandam used to be the key factor for any big movie’s success for so many years. Audiences used to enjoy watching him doing the same comedy in almost all the films.

People stopped enjoying it all of a sudden and Brahmi is finding it tough to bounce back because of the mediocre writing. There was a period when Brahmanandam was hardly seen on screen. He was able to get busy after a hiatus but nothing seems to be working for him lately. Anand Prasad, Producer of Soukhyam says that Brahmanandam will bounce back with this film.

“Brahmanandam is being criticized for doing similar characters in all the films. Soukhyam will give him a new dimension. Our previous film Loukyam has given break to Rakul Preet and comedian Prudhvi. Soukhyam is going to make Regina a star and put Brahmanandam back on track,” he said.

Although Harish Shankar has delivered a decent average movie with Subramanyam For Sale, the director is not flooded with offers from the top heroes. At present, he is waiting for a call from heroes. The way the things are happening in the industry, he may have to wait for another four to six months to take his next movie on to the sets.

He hoped that either Chiranjeevi or Pawan Kalyan would give him a chance after the release of S4S, but nothing of that has happened. Harish was hoping that megastar would hand over the job of directing his 150th movie as the film was getting delayed but his hopes were dashed off when Ram Charan announced Vinayak’s name for the remake of Kaththi.

When producer Dil Raju got the dates from Pawan Kalyan, Harish was hoping that the powerstar would announce his name but it didn’t happen. Pawan Kalyan himself doesn’t know when he will do a film for Dil Raju. Harish Shankar’s only hope is now getting nod from his guru and friend Mass Maharaja Ravi Teja’s dates next year.