Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao has been part of Telugu Film Industry right from his young age and for almost 50 years. He directed his first movie in 1974 and then continued on to better his success rate with one film after another. He is known for glamorising the Telugu screen with picturesque and creative presentation of songs and heroines. He has always been updating his ideas and skills from one day to another. He had reached his peak as a director in the 90’s that resulted him in directing his first major devotional movie, Annamayya. The film transformed his career from making commercial entertainers to devotional films and now, he is the only maker who can command a opening with such genre. For him, his partners in crime are Akkineni Nagarjuna and MM Keeravani along with J.K. Bharavi. He recently talked to media and expressed his wish to pass on the rich culture and history of India and Telugu households to the today’s youth.
He said, “I observe many young people enthusiastically performing all rituals to God and climbing the hills of Tirumala barefooted but all for a personal favor or reason. To them, I thought I should explain why Tirumala became so popular and what is the history of Lord Venkateswara and why he is regarded so much among the devotees. For that I chose Hathiram Baba character and the story is majorly about Lord than the devotee and not as in Annamayya, which was a biopic of sorts on the great poet.” He further added that he could not see the film with another actor other than Akkineni Nagarjuna playing the character of the great devotee, Hathiram Baba. He exclaimed, “Had Nag said No to the film, I would not have gone ahead with it.” He also made it clear that the statement of Nag in audio has been misinterpreted and his intention is to say ,” In Devotional genre, this will be my last film, but I would like to continue making as long as God bestows his kind blessings on me as he been doing all these years.”
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