The first directorial venture of most successful Tollywood female director Vijayanirmala’s Meena completes forty years by today. On this special occasion, IQlikmovies.com brings you some facts about the making of such breakthrough film:
The film is based on popular Telugu author Yaddanapudi Sulochanarani’s novel of the same name. Vijaya Niramala who had the frail of making different films was highly impressed by the book and wanted to make it into a feature film. When she discussed the same with Superstar Krishna, he echoed her thoughts. But very soon they came to know that the book rights were owned by Annapurna Studios for which Dukkapati Madhusudana Rao was the owner. Krishna approached him and requested for the rights to be sold so that they can make it into a film. Madhusudana Rao didn’t accept in a go but Krishna was determined to get his consent. Finally, Krishna could get the rights and the film’s shooting commenced entirely in Burripalem, Tenali –owing to the budget constraints in mind. The total budget of the film was around 5 Lakhs and was made in Black and White.
During the filming, an interesting incident happened. The film featured huge star cast like Allu Ramalingaiah, Jaggayya, Gummadi, Chandrakala, S.Varalakshmi and so on. The first day of the filming was so hectic featuring all the actors in six scenes. As a result Gummadi felt overworked and he thought of giving up on the film. But the ever optimistic Krishna arranged a special screening of the shot footage to Gummadi in order to convince the great actor. Gummadi was highly impressed with the work and continued to act in the film. The entire film was shot in the duration of 35 days and in the reel length of 17000 feet. After it got released, the film became musically successful as well. All the songs in the film became hits and ‘Pellante Noorella Panta’ became highly popular.
Till date, Meena is termed as the first hit for Vijayanirmala in her directorial career. After Meena, she never looked back and even was included in Guinness Book of Records as the first female director to make 45 films. It was a breakthrough for Krishna as well for the brilliant performance he gave. The film ran successfully for 50 days in two theatres and 100 days in one theatre in Vijayawada town.
