Actor Rana Daggubati’s upcoming multilingual film Haathi Mere Saathi, in which he plays a mahout, has been confirmed to hit the screens during Sankranti festival next year. The announcement was made on Wednesday via a tweet by Rana.
In Prabhu Solomon directed Haathi Mere Saathi, which will also release in Tamil and Telugu; Rana plays a character inspired from environmental activist Jadav Payeng, popularly called the Forest Man of India.
The film, which also stars Vishnu Vishal, Pulkit Samrat, Zoya Hussain and Shriya Pilgaonkar among others, has been titled Kaadan in Tamil and Aaranya in Telugu.
“Fighting the pandemic has shown us that our forests have been fighting a growing pandemic of human destruction for a long time! When will this stop!? Lets create awareness with #Kaadan, releasing on Pongal 2021 only at a theatre near you (sic).”Rana tweeted.
{{/usCountry}}“Fighting the pandemic has shown us that our forests have been fighting a growing pandemic of human destruction for a long time! When will this stop!? Lets create awareness with #Kaadan, releasing on Pongal 2021 only at a theatre near you (sic).”Rana tweeted.
{{/usCountry}}Rana, in a chat with Hindustan Times last year, opened up about working in the project. He said working on Haathi Mere Saathi was more challenging than working on the Baahubali series. In the film, Rana got to work and spend a lot of time with real elephants.
“Working with real elephants may sound exciting on paper but it was extremely exhausting. 10 days into the shoot, I called Rajamouli sir and told him how challenging this project had already become. It was equally exciting because we were doing something different; we were telling the story of a much bigger issue,” he said.
The film has been predominantly shot in Thailand. Before the project went on the floors, Rana spent close to two weeks with elephants and also shed 15 kilos to play his part.
On signing the project, Rana had said in a statement: “There’s a very exciting physical language to the character I’m playing in Haathi Mere Saathi; something entirely different from what I’ve done in the past. I’ve always wanted to be a part of content that can travel across the country, and am very happy that Trinity is backing cinema of this genre. It’s a rare story about the relevance of nature in our lives, narrated through a wonderful relationship between man and elephant.”
“This story is definitely another of those rare challenges I’m beginning to enjoy being a part of. Prabhu Solomon’s passion for nature and elephants makes him probably the finest craftsman in the country who can handle a story like this,” he added.
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