Yatra, the much awaited biopic on the life of YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the CM of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, is all set for release on February 8 with its US premiere happening a day before, on February 7.
Speaking to TNM, director Mahi Raghav confirmed that the first ticket of the film was auctioned in Seattle, in the US, for a whopping Rs 4.37 lakh. The proceeds from this auction will be donated to the Dr YSR Foundation.
The ticket was sold for 6,120 US dollars at an event held on Wednesday at Seattle as part of the US premiere.
“Even though we collected a huge amount, only 12 dollars have been taken as part of the movie collection and the rest has been donated to the YSR foundation in Hyderabad,” the director said.
Yatra is a biopic on the legendary politician and Chief Minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, who died in an air crash. The film will trace his growth as a politician and more importantly, the Padayatra he undertook throughout the state in 2003 which led him to the CM’s chair.
The film, directed by Mahi V Raghav, has Malayalam mega star Mammootty playing YSR on screen. Mammootty, though not entirely new to Tollywood, has grabbed eyeballs by carefully imitating the mannerisms of YSR in the trailer that was released a month ago. Wearing white sports shoes and clad in a white shirt and dhoti throughout the trailer, Mammootty appears to be in top form and seems to have given a powerful performance.
Yatra has a bevy of stars in the cast including Jagapathi Babu, who plays YSR's father YS Raja Reddy, Rao Ramesh as KVP Ramachandra Rao, who was YSR's closest friend from his medical college days and Suhasini Maniratnam as the former minister Sabitha Indra Reddy.
It also has Anasuya Bharadwaj, Posani Krishna Murali, Vinod Kumar and Sachin Khedekar in supporting roles. The film has been produced by Vijay Chilla and Shashi Devireddy under the banner 70 MM Pictures and its technical crew includes K for music, Sathyan Sooryan for cinematography and A Sreekar Prasad for editing. The film will be released in three languages, namely Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam simultaneously.
Telugu producer Dil Raju has acquired the Nizam and Uttarandhra theatrical rights of the film.
(With inputs from Digital Native)