Actor Naveen Vijay Krishna, the older son of Naresh, has played lead roles in Telugu films like Nandini Nursing Home (2016) and Oorantha Anukuntunnaru (2019) before turned director with the recent musical short film, Satya. The Soul of Satya, a song from the short, was released on Independence Day.
The song features a happily married couple played by Sai Dharam Tej and Swathi Reddy. When Sai leaves the city for his work, we see Swathi going through her pregnancy alone. Parallely, the story moves to Sai, a soldier posted in Kupwara who is safeguarding people during Operation Rakshak. The story traverses through the eyes of Swathi.
Explaining the inspiration behind The Soul of Satya, composed by popular playback singer Sruthi Ranjani, Naveen Vijay Krishna says, “I have been instilled with patriotism ever since my childhood. My father always told me to not take my freedom for granted. I also grew up watching Shankar’s Indian. Every time I watched it, I used to cry. It served as a huge inspiration for me.”
The opportunity to direct the short film came his way when Dil Raju Productions asked Naveen to make a music video from the perspective of a soldier’s wife. “It was during the research that I discovered stories of several veer naris who had joined the army after their husbands were martyred in war,” says the actor-filmmaker, who shares that understanding the point of view of the women in his family helped him shape the story better.
Incidentally, Sai Dharam Tej was a good friend of Naveen, and yet, he wasn’t the first choice for the video. “He heard the idea and wanted to do it. I told him that his fans would have a problem with him being a side hero, but he trusted me and my direction and came on board,” he says.
Swathi and Naveen worked together on the 2005 Krishna Vamsi directorial Danger. “I have always admired her confidence and natural acting. In fact, after Subramaniapuram (Ananthapuram in Telugu), I became her fan.”
The Soul of Satya is part of a 23-minute short that is expected to be released after making the rounds in the festival circuit. Naveen credits his writers for carrying the essence of the song in Tamil and Hindi as well. While Vivek Ravi leads the writing in Tamil, Kadali Satyanarayana and Ritesh G Rao worked on it in Telugu and Hindi, respectively.