The biopic on the legendary actor Savitri, Mahanati in Telugu and Nadigaiyar Thilagam in Tamil, was released a few days ago and has received positive reviews. However, Kamala Selvaraj, daughter of actor Gemini Ganesan through his first wife and noted gynaecologist, is angry over the biopic as she says it shows her father in poor light.
In an interview with TNIE, Kamala Selvaraj pointed out that some facts in the film are either false or distorted and so have hurt her family. She says that it is totally untrue that Gemini Ganesan introduced Savitri to alcohol. She also said that the makers have portrayed Gemini Ganesan “to be jobless and hanging around the sets of Savitri’s films all the time”, whereas he was a star with his own fan following.
Kamala Selvaraj is reported to have said that her father tried to save Savitri on several occasions and at one point of time had gone to her house but was thrown out by the guards over there. Ever since then, he refused to meet Savitri and the relationship ended on a bad note, she said revealing that she was there with her dad during the incident.
Mahanati/Nadigaiyar Thilagam, directed by Nag Ashwin, stars Keerthy Suresh as Savitri and Dulquer Salmaan as Gemini Ganesan. The film is doing extraordinarily well in the US. So far it has collected over Rs 12 crore in the US market and is all set to cross the $2 million mark.
The biopic has an ensemble cast, including Samantha Akkineni, Vijay Deverakonda, Rajendra Prasad, Tanikella Bharani, Bhanupriya, Malavika Nair, Shalini Pandey, Tulasi and Divyavani. The film also has a long list of celebs making cameo appearances and they include Akkineni Naga Chaitanya, Mohan Babu, Prakash Raj, Naresh, Krish, Srinivas Avasarala, Sandeep Vanga, Tharun Bhascker Dhaassyam and Sai Madhav Burra.
The film is bankrolled by C Ashwini Dutt, Swapna Dutt and Priyanka Dutt under the banners Vyjayanthi Movies and Swapna Cinema. Mickey J Meyer has composed music for this venture with Dani Sanchez-Lopez working on the cinematography and Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao editing it. Sai Madhav Burra penned the Telugu dialogues while the Tamil dialogues have been written by Madhan Karky.
(Content provided by Digital Native)