Lights, camera, politics

Three much-hyped films with political themes have Andhra Pradesh and Telangana abuzz 

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

IN MARCH 2011, when Telangana was still a part of Andhra Pradesh, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy raised the banner of revolt in the Congress and launched a new political party. A month later, a multilingual political thriller—titled Rangam in Telugu and Ko in Tamil—was released in theatres. It had actor Jeeva as a journalist who goes against his longtime friend and budding politician, played by Ajmal Ameer.

The film was an instant hit, but Jagan’s party took time to find success. In 2019, five years after Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated, he led his party to victory and became chief minister.

It is strange coincidence that both Jeeva and Ameer are now portraying Jagan in two separate films that will soon be released. Ameer is Jagan in Vyooham, and Jeeva plays the same part in Yatra 2, the sequel to the 2019 biopic of Jagan’s father, former chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. The two films come at a crucial time—elections to the Andhra Pradesh assembly and the Lok Sabha are due next year.

Vyooham will be released on November 10. It is directed by Ram Gopal Varma, who gave final touches to the film’s first trailer at RGV Den, his workplace in Hyderabad. He has included the remixed version of the popular poll campaign song ‘Ravali Jagan, kavali Jagan’ (We will bring Jagan, we need Jagan) in the trailer.

The original song was produced in 2019, by the political strategy firm I-PAC. It bolstered Jagan’s campaign to become chief minister, and was such a runaway hit that even opposition leaders found it catchy.