After the debacle of Abhinetri, actor and producer Pooja Gandhi seems determined to prove that when you are pushed into the depths of failure, you can fight back with raw courage after a patient, insightful exploration of your flaws. Pooja is undaunted and back in an emboldened avatar with her next production, Ravani, to be made under her home banner Pooja Productions.
While for many, success is a public affair and failure is a private funeral, Pooja would beg to differ. Abhinetri was panned publicly. However, despite this there is no lack of enthusiasm on Pooja’s part when she says, “I don’t regret making Abhinetri and it will remain close to my heart. I learned a lot while producing and acting in the film and it has provided me with a good experience in what to consider and what to leave behind. In fact, it has pushed me to take up more production responsibilities.”
Having taken a well-deserved break, the actress listened to about 30 scripts from different directors and finally picked up Chakravarthy Chandrachud’s subject. “Just like my previous films Dandupalya and Abhinetri, Ravani also has an out-of-the-box subject. When I heard the concept, I felt that it will again be something powerful and something which has not been attempted before,” she says.
Not wanting to reveal much, a cautious Pooja states that the film will not be female oriented and will have a strong male character cast opposite her.
On choosing Chakravarthy to direct her second project, she says, “Chakravarthy and I have been working on a lot of concepts and ideas. In fact, we collaborated for a programme for a national television channel which is still under production. We didn’t intentionally come together for Ravani. But, when he narrated the script, I liked the way he had visualised the story. In fact, after directing Janma he has taken a long time over his next. He too was looking for the right kind of people to work with him and that’s how everything fell in place. From whatever little I have seen of his work, I know that he has got talent,” she says.
According to the actress, for a subject like Ravani, she will need a complete makeover for which she will be undergoing physical training and maintaining rigorous schedules. “The next one and a half months will be dedicated to learning horse riding and action moves,” she reveals.
Meanwhile Pooja is considering a couple of projects that include Dandupalya 2 and another with director Lucky Shankar. She signs off saying, “Films under my production house are more of a five-year plan.”