Jr NTR was the chief guest at the Kantara: Chapter 1 Telugu pre-release event on Sunday evening, and though he admitted he was feeling weak after a recent injury while shooting an advert, the actor still delivered a speech filled with warmth, memory, and praise.

NTR began with a personal recollection, tying his grandmother’s tales to Rishab Shetty’s vision. “My grandmother is from Kundapur and she used to tell me interesting stories from there when I was a child. I was always curious about the place. But I never imagined that from those stories, a director would create a film. Rishab left me speechless when I saw those same stories on screen in Kantara: Chapter 1,” he said.

His expressed admiration for Rishab Shetty. “Rishab sir is a very rare breed of actor-directors. I always wondered what dominated more in him. But later I realised he dominates all the 24 crafts of filmmaking. If not for him, this film wouldn’t have been made to this scale,” NTR remarked, underlining the uniqueness of the prequel’s director-star.

The actor also shared how Rishab helped him fulfil a long-held wish of his mother’s. “My mother wanted me to take her to the Krishna temple in Udupi. Without Rishab, that darshan would not have happened. They treated us like family. When I visited, I got a chance to see the sheer hard work that went into Kantara Chapter 1. It is humanly impossible to make this film without Rishab and his team,” he said.

The prequel to the 2022 phenomenon Kantara is again written, directed and headlined by Rishab Shetty. Produced by Hombale Films, Kantara: Chapter 1 promises to revisit the raw mysticism and rooted fury of the original. The cast features Gulshan Devaiah, Jayaram, and Prakash Thuminad among others, with Arvind S Kashyap on cinematography, Ajaneesh Loknath on music and Shiva Kumar on production design.

Kantara: Chapter 1 releases worldwide on 2 October for Dussehra.