When two Malayali friends, K Shelna and Simmy Joseph, based in the national capital decided to produce and direct a Hindi feature film, Anya, they wanted a safe bet. The duo decided to make it bilingual by coming up with its Marathi version too. Anya, set in the backdrop of human trafficking, unfortunately, got entangled in the pandemic situation and does not see a theatre release happening anytime soon. Two songs from the movie have already got pretty good reception on Youtube and the filmmakers are now looking at an OTT release.
Bollywood actor Atul Kulkarni plays the protagonist alongside Raima Sen, of P T Kunju Muhammed’s Veeraputhran fame. The other cast members include Yashpal Sharma, Govind Namdev, and Marathi actors Prathamesh Parab, Bhushan Pradhan and Tejashree Pradhan, Krutika Deo and Sunil Tawde. Prathamesh is not new to the industry, as he had already appeared in Jithu Joseph’s Drishyam in 2015. But Anya is expected to be Prathamesh Parab’s emphatic entry into Bollywood as a leading actor. Anya is Simmy’s debut movie. An alumnus of Jawaharlal Nehru University and a political activist, he established ‘Initiative Films’ in Delhi to make movies on socially and politically relevant themes.
Simmy always wanted to do a women-centric film, a mass entertainer. But the coronavirus played spoilsport. The 135 minutes long film has five songs including a patriotic song. The lyrical videos released by Zee Music have raised expectations about the film. Music has been by S Vipin Patwa Rishi, Krishna Raj and Ramanathan Gopalakrishnan and the Hindi and Marathi lyrics are by Sagar, Sajeev Sarathie and Prashant Jamdar. When the second song, Oo Re Parindey was released, within a single day, it got more than 65, 000 hits. “Anya was shot on a massive canvas and in normal circumstances, it would have been considered for various awards as it handles a socially relevant topic. The film was partly shot at the infamous GB Road, the red light area in New Delhi where the cinematographer had a hard time cranking his camera as he followed Prathamesh Parab”, recalled Simmy. Sajan Kalathil worked behind the camera.