Rana Daggubati: Indie cinema's newest hero

The actor was instrumental in ensuring the pan-India theatrical release of Payal Kapadia's internationally-acclaimed movie All We Imagine As Light

- By Ananya Ghosh

If you aren't aware, the Baahubali actor is also an astute producer and entrepreneur. The grandson of filmmaker Dr D Ramanaidu and the son of producer D Suresh Babu, Rana Daggubati was born into the business. Apart from being one of the main forces behind his family-owned company, Suresh Productions, he also owns Spirit Media—a company that was founded in 2005 as a VFX and production company and later evolved into a 360-degree content and brand ecosystem that focusses on original content development and distribution among other things. We sat down with the actor/ distributer to talk about his company's first pan-India release, which happens to be Payal Kapadia's Golden Globe-nominated, Cannes Grand Prix winning movie All We Imagine As Light. Excerpts:

What made you pick this movie for distribution?

It's been about five years that we have been distributing independent movies, rather alternative films. But we never stepped outside of the Telugu industry, because first and foremost, it is just so expensive to land a film. Then P&A [promotion and advertising] takes up a chunk of the budget. Also, there's a certain standard norm that you need to follow. But when we saw All We Imagine as Light, we absolutely loved it—it is such a beautiful film. It touched upon topics that are personal and relatable. Also, a large part of the film is in Malayalam and it becomes a mainstream film in Malayalam as this narrative is accepted there. Malayalam movies have a good-sized release in Tamil Nadu, because they also have an independent sector. So, we understood that it can get a good visibility in South. We decided to pick the distribution for the whole country and see how it goes.

In the previous interview, you had said that the first movie you had made didn't get a proper release despite earning a National Award. So, did that eventually impact your decision to back such films?