a lot of avakai in my mind….
Its taken me a while to get back to writing on PFC. I just have not been in that state of mind to sit and write, so much post production work has been happening, so many marketing and distribution issues to take care of, just so much on my plate to make me worry and think only about my film and its fate, its been tough to be a little objective and write what I feel like….but with things now finally coming to a climax, we have just 2 weeks to go before the film releases statewide, my mind is beginning to settle and I consciously have made myself to try and put on record some of my thoughts…
To quickly take you through the entire production process, Avakai Biryani was a story I have been thinking about since Sekhar made Godavari, the aftermath of Godavari lead me to Confessions, thus putting AB on the back-burner but right after Happy Days released last October, I found myself energized to finish writing AB.
The writing itself was a cathartic-chaotic one week of compiling all my notes I had made on the subject since I first started thinking about it…..by the end of December last year, I had the first draft ready,which I promptly showed to Sekhar….
Pre production started around mid January this year and two months later we embarked on a massive 85 days shooting schedule in the piping heat of March…along the way we faced issues, with people and their politics in small towns, I got beaten up pretty bad in some jungle scuffles (I will keep that mysterious for now 
), we faced extreme weather conditions, it would storm one day and be desert hot the next….but we went through the grind, one day rolling into another….till we became one with the people and the countryside around us…..
Shooting was done in four major schedules after which we sat down to edit….edit a really tough film….balancing the emotions and performances, the nuances, it was a task…..it was a grind, we got through it….
the most enjoyable process was recording the music score for the movie, for the first time in months, I didn’t feel like I was ‘fighting’ with my film….the music came together beautifully, so much so, that I have decided to release the OST if the film is a major success….lets see, I am really excited about that…
As I write this piece, the final mix on the film is happening, the colour grading is happening simultaneously, theatre halls are being booked, the number of prints are being decided upon and of course, publicity,publicity and more publicity. The actors and me are going to every radio show, every TV show, anywhere and everywhere….with Sekhar leading the way and opening doors for us…
I think I know now, how Abbas Tyrewala would have felt with Aamir Khan leading the way during the publicity of JTYJN, I feel privileged and lucky to have a producer who believes in me, my team and most importantly on the film. So much so, that he put a lot of his own money into it….
Just that makes me really pray that this movies reaches out to its audience. I am waiting for it to release, cus I know there will be reason to debate and I am looking forward to hearing what people have to say about some of the characters motivations et al…..
I would love to talk about the subject matter and plot point of the film, but I think I must wait until the release to begin that debate, all I can honestly say is, for me, its a return to the golden age of classical filmmaking….
for me atleast! lol
more later…
Tags: anish kuruvilla, avakai biryani, sekhar kammula
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
very good anish.. superb, looking forward to it
All the Best!!!
Video looks Fantastic
Sahi Anish bhai…eagerly waiting for the release..one of the most awaited of this year fro TFI for me..the music is fantastic…and Kamal looks very refreshing….somebody give him more work….
BTW as everyone must be asking..what is up with the Biryani? Is that a mystery? need to watch the movie for it?
Good luck dost!!
nice anish bhai!! manikanth kadri seems to have struck the right chords
The visuals are lush and music is haunting! Very cool.
Welcome back! AB looks like an awesome come back and an absolute winner!
Looks very pleasant, lush scenes, soft music. Looking forward to it.
check out the website guys… even better
http://www.avakaibiryani.com
kadri seemsset to rock em all up
Pretty cool website man.
The website is done by the same team, ITRockerz, who designed Anish’s previous movie, Confessions of a Filmmaker’s website..a small tit-bit on it…The group ITRockerz is run by Kamal Kamaraju’s( lead in COFM and AB) brother..
biryani’s in my stomach
… butterflies dont have a place and here’s wishing the entire team a grand entry with the film. let everyone’s efforts shine. waiting for more posts.
The music in the first video specially has a hypnotic effect Anish…
oz bhai..all the songs of AB have the same effect..and to most part i believe..the music of the first song is a signature tune…good luck to the whole team
OM… is the music out already?
Anish… great visuals man… the auto on the edge of the lake is especially memorable… All the best!
Ravptor..yes the music is out….
anish…. best of luck
and thanks for introducing manikanth kadri through this movie…. the music is simply superb …long time since i have heard something like this in a telugu movie…. when is it releasing in US?
Hey great stuff!!
anish
i wish and would like to believe your last statement comes true. all the best Anish, i am eagerly waiting to see your film.
Anish, this is such a delight! Absolutely breathtaking!! And the auto in one of the pic reminds me so much of Anand :-)! This is a sure shot winner!!! All the very very very best and post back more about AB.
best
Appu
ah..that shot with the three guys swimming..and an “auto” beside the river..lyrical!
All the best..Anish!
Anish,
Was wondering why you hadn’t started blogging on PFC for AB when you did it religiously for TCOFM? Then again, AB and TCOFM may be as different as chalk and cheese and with Shekar behind AB, the sailing must have been relatively smoother compared to your first film.
Thanks for bringing Manikanth to TFI. BTW, a fabulous score from him.
Good luck to you and your team.
Hai Anish,
Heard quite a bit about confessions of a filmmaker and now abt avakai biryani…kudos..cant wait to watch the film..wish you all the very best..the trailers are very mesmerizing.
Cheers
P.s. if you dont mind, pass me shamdat’s contact, we r shooting a tamil film in dec..
All the very best Anish!!
People like Shekhar shud not end up in losses!
I pray that this film gains maximum applauses n maximum profits as well. So that the future tollywood gives opportunities to ppl like me 
Music is nice.
I aprticularly liked the creative beats for the song ‘maamidi kommaki’. the kind of beats is some what refresing n new.
‘Veerudena’ is really melifluous. But I cant resist comparing with Colbie calliet’s song.
Vsh u n shkhar kammula all the very best !!!!
Btw, I didnt watch ‘confessions………’ . Wen it’l be available in amrket???
also, if u don’t see it as a too much thingy..could u pls mail me shekhar kammula’s and urs mail ids??
my mail id is: shriedhar@gmail.com
Thanks in advance!!!
Hi Anish, good to hear from you again and the trailer looks interesting. Looking forward to the film. Good luck Mite
@shriedhar
“Confessions of a filmmaker” has been released online.
@Anish
blog more about this adventure.
@Kamal
Wish you all luck dude.
Hey Anish …
Adigadigo is just Out of this world … loved it …. Grt team work … music Rocks ….
All the very best…
Anish,
ppl can critizes eazly as u have done with COFM.. than atleast you ppl shd be stand on what u commit, after much hype and publise ur furstation on TFI, u have choose love story which i think we have seen A-Z type of love story.. u have come on ground to make money
and my suggestion to FM.. if you have choosen script..the character shd match the script.. as i known anish has choosen a character of autodriver and actor a wooden kamala.. do you think he is perfect..who doesn’t to act.. we have seen his character in Govdari.
and there is songs, dance, love, all the stupid stuffs of regular movies.. may be u made in form of shekar.
the samething u have critized in COFM.
p.s.. my english will not good..so bare with my language
Anish,
All the best on your maiden venture.
Just curious..do you speak/understand Telugu properly?
It is a good thing to see many young directors, and technicians being encouraged in Telugu film industry.
The paying public will be the ultimate judges, but I am sure just the Satellite rights and US market (due to Sekhar Kammula brand) will make the film break-even. And whatever revenues you get through mainstream release in AP would be the profit, I suppose.
Cool ! nice formula.This kind of assured returns would hopefully see many ‘hat ke’ films from young directors like you. Btw, have you cast the lucky mascot of Amigo films – Roshni..oops..Kamalini Mukherjee?
hmmmm…
any takers for mail id requests..? :-(
hmmmm…
any takers for my mail id requests..? :-(
@ Kumar N
BTW dont be so surprised to see a mallu like Anish in telugu cinema.Of late a lot of outsiders especially tamilians are doing quite well in telugu cinema.Best known among them probably are Karunakaran ( Tholliprema,Balu,Ullasanga Utsahanga etc) & Bhaskar ( Bommarilu,Parugu).I guess thats the power of cinema.so 3 cheers
@ Anish
BTW your movie releases in the next few hrs ( I guess probably in less than 12 hours) & so I wish you all the very best.I hope to catch the movie myself this weekend!!!
Too bad it didn’t release here in Bangalore. :-(
waiting for your next post anish.
Hi Anish,
I watched your movie today.Must say its a cool movie& good one after a long time in Telugu…nothing artificial i thght…simple one…but i guess being simple is the most diffcult thing…keep making such movies….kudos to the entire team esp DOP shamdat…never thght Vikarabad was so beautiful….
If you can recall I met at Prasads after Vinayakudu show was over and enquired abt Confessions of Film Maker DVD
Deepak
hi anish
I just saw a program on zee telugu which was kinda “go to the premiere-meet the stars- get reviews” stuff.
I think they interviewed you too…I must say your answer reflected your mood – “repu chooddam”.
I hope it goes for the more popular “bumper hit”…!
Waiting to watch it in Germany…are you planning to release DVDs soon?
cheers !
Prashanth