Ravi Teja picks Madras Day to make Irumudi Kattu's Tamil case

Ravi Teja has built a career on films that announce themselves from the poster, so there is something disarming about the one he flew into Chennai to talk about: a story of family, faith and a man’s slow change of heart. Irumudi Kattu, his first film with director Shiva Nirvana, opened worldwide on August 21 alongside its Telugu original Irumudi, and the team spent Madras Day in the city making the Tamil case in person. The Telugu version has taken off with family audiences, and everyone on stage wanted the same houses here.

The actor kept his own turn short and warm. G.V. Prakash Kumar’s music, he said, is the soul of the film. Baby Nakshathra, who plays the daughter at the centre of it, “has a bright future,” and Priya Bhavani Shankar “has done superb work.” As for his director, he left the room hanging: “I like Shiva. I will tell you why at the success celebration. Watch the film and tell me first.”

G.V. Prakash returned the compliment with the biggest comparison available to a Tamil composer. “The way Rajinikanth had a distinctiveness in Baashha, Ravi Teja sir has that same distinctiveness in commercial cinema. Half the heroes here are his fans, and plenty of directors too.” He filed Irumudi Kattu alongside Pollathavan and Raja Rani as stories that felt like winners the moment he heard them, predicted a shelf of awards for Nakshathra, and said audiences soon would not need convincing to follow Shiva Nirvana’s name alone.

Priya Bhavani Shankar, who plays Kaveri, made the family pitch most directly. She signed on with total belief in the story, felt the songs were settled the day G.V. Prakash walked in, and noted something she clearly valued: despite this being a big star’s film, Shiva Nirvana shot exactly the story he had narrated, with no mid-shoot swerves. “Tamil audiences will never think of this as a film that came from another language. Language is no barrier. Wherever a father and daughter live, this film will win.”

Shiva Nirvana grounded his Tamil connection in the films that raised him, naming Bharathiraja and Bhagyaraj as particular loves. His test for his own work is what the audience carries out of the hall. “When you finish this film, you will think about your daughter and your wife. That is its impact. Families are coming together to watch it in Telugu, and I want Tamil audiences to come the same way. You will see Ravi Teja sir from an angle you have not seen before, and Priya’s character will leave a real mark.”

The wider team backed the sentiment with their own superlatives. Producer Y. Ravi Shankar of Mythri Movie Makers admitted he wondered how a single story could hold a thriller layer, a family layer and a spiritual one until Shiva Nirvana showed him, and went one step further on the film’s Ayyappa thread: “Lord Ayyappa himself chose this film.” Dialogue writer Vijay Balaji, on his third Mythri collaboration, described it as a story that plays out between three fathers. And lyricist Balaji Venugopal, fresh off Vishwanath & Sons, called writing for a Ravi Teja film a dream he had never dared to have, said all three of his songs sit inside the story rather than beside it, and admitted the climax left him moist-eyed. Irumudi Kattu, produced by Naveen Yerneni and Y. Ravi Shankar and presented by T-Series Films, is in theatres now.