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C.L.Narasa Reddy Receiving the Award from President Venkatraman |
Sri: Why is that you never gave such a big film after
Geethanjali?
C.L.N.R.: I think working with a top-notch director like Mani in my initial stages as a producer, and the fame that was donned upon us with the film
Geethanjali, put me on a high mountain and other things didn't work out as well later. Though I wanted to do some more films with Mani, he was doing films only on his banner and it didn't work out.
Sri: What's the reason behind your hibernation?
C.L.N.R.: To tell you the truth, I dubbed good Tamil films like
Police Adhikari,
Captain Prabhakar,
etc. into Telugu and they were all real profitable ventures. I used to be the distributor for Guntur area under the name Datta Sai Films and distributed films like
Shiva,
Karthavyam,
etc. in that area, but we discontinued it later. I got the rights for the film
Manathi from Malayalam and want to do it under the direction of Ram Gopal Varma, who suggested Gunnam Gangaraju's name. We started the film
Triveni LKG, but that didn't work out. I got the rights for almost 15 movies, but after the death of G. Venkateshwaran (Maniratnam's brother), I stopped thinking about it.
Sri: I know you are one of the board members of G.V. Films which is the first public limited company in filmdom. What went wrong with it ?
C.L.N.R.: Yes, I was one of the board members of the G.V. Films along with Maniratnam, G. Srinivas, and G. Venkateshwaran (G.V.)
gaaru. Michael Jackson show was announced and G.V. invested so much on that, but the show never happened, as Jackson cited health reasons as an inability to participate in the how. Since it's the event manager that signed the contract and not Jackson himself, we could not get any compensation from him, and finally the company ended up in losses. At the same time, some films that were released through the G.V. Films ran into losses too! ...We had plans to do a remake of the in Tekugu which was a hit with Vijaykanth in Tamil under the direction of Bhagyaraja, but G.V.'s sudden death put a sad stop to everything.
Sri: How is the company now?
C.L.N.R.: The company is fine. After the death of G.V., all of us resigned and one Mr. London Ganesh took over the company, ...and he is doing good business now!
Sri: What are you doing these days?
C.L.N.R.: I am doing granite business. We export most of it to the USA and also to U.K. (London) and Germany. I have a son Gautham who is also taking care of the business in India. (Remember the kid who eyes on Girija in the market scene in the film
Geethanjali?) My daughter lives in Boston, USA.
Interview: Sri Atluri
Edited by: NaChaK
