Samantha Ruth Prabhu first Indian star to ensure pay parity for artistes on her maiden production

Nandini Reddy to collaborate with Samantha Ruth Prabhu for a third film, highlighting their strong friendship and successful past projects.

Telugu film director and writer Nandini Reddy is known for her lighthearted, feel-good, and family-oriented films with strong emotional depth. She has collaborated twice with top south star Samantha Ruth Prabhu and now is all set to join hands once again with the Oh! Baby actor.

Samantha Ruth Prabhu is venturing into production.

Nandini Reddy confirms working with Samantha

During a panel discussion on women in cinema at the Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFES) recently, the Ala Modalaindi director stated to the delight of the audience, “Yes, I am working with Samantha in my next film!” This will be her third collaboration with Samantha, with whom she shares a good friendship, after the successful Jabardasth and Oh! Baby.

Interestingly, Samantha launched her production house called Tralala Moving Pictures in December 2023. At the time, the Mersal actor wrote on her Instagram, “Tralala Moving Pictures aims to produce content representative of new age expression and thought. A nurturing space which invites and encourages stories that speak to the strength and complexity of our social fabric. And a platform for filmmakers to tell stories that are meaningful, authentic and universal.”

Tralala Moving Pictures tackle pay disparity

Pay disparity has been a highly debated topic and while some state that it is the market that determines the salaries of heroes versus heroines, today south stars like Samantha, Nayanthara, Trisha, and Ramya, commend top dollars for their work having proved that they too have a market. But this has not been an easy road for actors in the south film industry. Recently, Bollywood actor Madhuri Dixit and Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga also talked about this pay gap between males and females in the Hindi film industry and wanted men and actors to address this.

Speaking about pay disparity between the genders in cinema at BIFFES, Nandini Reddy revealed that Samantha had told her that she had ensured pay parity for everyone who worked on her first production, tentatively titled Bangaram, under Tralala Moving Pictures. The Shaakuntalam star, who plays the lead in Bangaram, is perhaps the first Indian star to ensure pay parity on her film and this was an aspect that Kannada star Ramya and DOP Preetha Jayaraman, who were part of the panel discussion, cheered for as well.

Director Nandini Reddy opened up about the challenges for women directors and said that they had strive to twice as hard as males to prove themselves and get producers on board for their projects. When asked how male directors still have producers lining up though their films may fail, she opined that for women, “Every Friday matters and how successful your films are determines your success. What a male director will achieve in four years, will take a female director eight years to achieve. And pay disparity is a glaring fact in all this.”