‘Shreyas’s Paddehuli captures the musical journey of a middle-class boy’

Director Guru Deshpande’s obsession with tigers reflects in the titles of his films too. After having named his last film Raja Huli, starring Yash, the director is now getting ready for the release of his next, Paddehuli. “I've always felt that the tiger is an animal that is unpredictable, and its behaviour has appealed to me. I had used a similar characterisation for Yash in Raja Huli,” he says.

Paddehulli will be the director’s sixth film in his decade-old career. Having distributed around 40 films in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, Guru is a director who has worked in various departments in the film industry.

His upcoming musical comes at a time when filmmakers are considering getting rid of songs altogether, or at least reducing the number of tracks. With Shreyas playing a rockstar in Paddehuli, the film has 10 songs, all of which have been composed by Ajaneesh Loknath. “Since this is the story of a middle-class boy’s musical journey, songs play a vital role in the film. The character responds to every thing through songs, poetically. We have used poems of various famous authors as songs in our film. These are the poems we learnt in school, and we are sure that they will connect with the audience, which will be a plus point in the second half,” he says.

Despite Shreyas Manju being a newbie, Guru says launching him is different from launching any other newcomer, since he comes from a family associated with cinema. However, at no point did the filmmaker feel any pressure. “Raja Huli was a film made under K Manju’s banner. The film was a hit, and as a producer he's always had confidence in me. He has watched the rushes of Paddehuli, and has liked it. This film will give Shreyas a good foundation to his career.”

The film, with a huge star cast, including Ravichandran, Sudharani, Puneeth Rajkumar, and Rakshit Shetty, will see Yogaraj Bhat play a strong character. Paddehuli also sees Guru’s son, Tanmay Deshpande, playing the childhood version of Shreyas.