Team Balagam has a lot to be happy about. Balagam, which is the maiden film of actor/comic-turned-filmmaker Venu Yeldandi and Dil Raju Productions, has been successful on both commercial and critical fronts.
The family drama set in rural Telangana revolves around the lives of three estranged, middle-aged siblings who are compelled to repair their strained relationship post the death of their father Komurayya. Spanning eleven days, Balagam deals with the themes of love, community, familial strife and bereavement with both tenderness and comedy, all while shedding a spotlight on the lesser-known traditions in Telangana.
Speaking about the success of Balagam, veteran producer Dil Raju, who has presented the film, says, “The film has truly struck a chord among people. I have been a producer for more than two decades now. After Bommarillu (2006), people started looking at their families in a whole new light. The same is happening with Balagam. We knew the film would be good, but we did not expect it to do so well. Nor did we expect Balagam to reunite many estranged families. This is extremely heartening.”
Balagam is currently running in theatres in its fourth week, drawing in audiences to the halls despite being available for streaming on Prime Video from March 24. Commenting on the simultaneous run of the film on both theatrical and non-theatrical platforms, Dil Raju comments, “We sold the OTT rights of Balagam before the release of the film. We had no idea that the film would be this successful, and we are glad that happened, but we had to adhere to the prior legal commitments we had with Prime.
We were not in a position to push the OTT release date further.” Dil Raju, who is also one of the leading distributors of the Nizam region went on to share details about the split-up of Balagam’s collection, “75% of our theatrical collections came from Telangana, 25% came from Andhra. Many audiences, especially in Andhra Pradesh, are now rediscovering this film via OTT. That said, Balagam will continue to run in theatres. We have no intention of taking it away from the halls. It is up to the people now, they can watch it wherever they want.”