Writer Mohan, known for his work as a writer, is now making his directorial debut with Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes. Ahead of the film’s release, he shares his insights on the film and speaks about his journey.
The recent trend of films featuring regional accents continues with the upcoming movie Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes, which showcases the Srikakulam accent. Writer Mohan is making his directorial debut with this film, which stars Vennela Kishore in the title role, along with six other actors, including Ananya Nagalla, Muralidhar Goud and Ravi Teja Mahadasyam. “This is not just a comedy film, but also an emotional one,” said director-writer Mohan about the film. He added that the story is set in the backdrop of 1991. “The accent is not used for just comedy in this film; it’s an emotion,” said the director.
Talking about the story, Mohan said that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Visakhapatnam before he left for Sriperumbudur, where he was assassinated. “When a big incident happens, people don’t think about a small incident that happened at the same time. So, I took the true story of Rajiv Gandhi and wrote a fictional story of Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes and linked both in my story. If you want to know how I linked them, you have to watch my film,” he said. Interestingly, most of the work for this film is not related to Srikakulam. “Most of the artists are from Telangana, including Vennela Kishore. They took it as a challenge and learned the Srikakulam accent for this film,” said Mohan. He added that he too started watching videos of Srikakulam-related content and the accent. “I am from Guntur, but I know about Srikakulam, so I asked everyone to watch the videos related to the accent and also spoke with that accent in the office until the film was completed,” he said.
The director said that Vennela Kishore is playing the character of the detective, Sherlock Holmes. “In general, a female lead or some other people assist the detective, but in my film, his father and mother are his assistants. They wanted their son to become a police officer, but he didn’t, so he ended up as a private detective,” said Mohan.
Producer Ramana Reddy wanted to make a film and was listening to many stories. “At that time, I narrated this story to him, he liked it and immediately wanted to start,” he said, explaining how this project came together.
When they put Srikakulam Sherlock Homes as the title, the distributor Vamsi Nandipati suggested adding a tag to it, otherwise, people may not register. “Many people, especially the rural ones, didn’t know Sherlock Holmes. So, we added the tag Chantabbai Taluka, because Chiranjeevi did a detective film Chantabbai and this Taluka is popular with Pawan Kalyan’s Pithapuram constituency, so that’s how we put the tagline,” explained the director.
The director said that all the characters in this film are important. “In the last 40 minutes of the film, it definitely takes everyone into a spellbound state, and producer Vamsi Nandipati bought this film after watching that only,” said Writer Mohan.
Mohan hails from Guntur and worked with popular director EVV Satyanarayana, Posani Krishna Murali and then Jeevitha Rajasekhar. “When I worked with Jeevitha and Rajasekhar, I toured most of the areas in Srikakulam district with them when they campaigned for a political party. Actually, Rajasekhar only started calling me Writer Mohan, thus my name has this prefix,” said Mohan. When he worked with EVV, there were many people with Mohan’s name, “so he put the prefix Writer to my name, because I am from the Writing Department,” he said.
The film was mostly shot near Nellimarla of Vizianagaram district, near Bheemili and then Ramoji Film City. “It’s a period film and I wanted to capture the 90s look for my film. So, I didn’t get many places, so I shot most of the film,” said the director.
He also shared that there are many writers at present and there were many stories with them. “Everyone wanted to become directly a director now, earlier they started with assistant, associate and then director. He used to learn the work, but now they don’t want to work and want to become directors,” said Writer Mohan. He added that many writers didn’t get a proper name when they worked for a film. “That’s another reason many writers are turning to direction,” he said.
When asked about his strong point, he said comedy. “When I worked with EVV Satyanarayana, I learnt this from him,” he said. He said he didn’t feel that he got the chance of direction very late. “I don’t feel it. I learnt all the basics all these years and also settled with my family. Now, I got the chance to direct a film, so I can do it without any pressure,” he concluded.
