Baanam (2009) Online
The story is set in the fictitious town of Ranasthali, in year 1989. Bhagat Panigrahi (Nara Rohith) is preparing for IPS. His father Chandrasekhar Panigrahi (Sayaji Shinde), a former Naxalite returns after 20 years before giving up his fight for the society for the reasons only known to him. He comes back home and questions his son's ambition of becoming a Police Officer. Meanwhile a local don, Shakti Patnaik (Randhir Gatla) is slowly building his empire, terrorizing police and anyone who opposes him. One day, Bhagat meets Subbalaxmi (Vedika) at the railway station and rescues her from the tragedy of her life. When her ex-husband involves Shakti's gang to abduct her, it triggers a series of consequences between Bhagat and Shakti. The rest is about how Bhagat never gives anything for his ambition, which inspires others to stand up for the fight against the tyranny of Shakti.
| Credited cast: | |||
 | Akurati Ramhith | - | Bhagat Panigrahi - Childhood |
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Bhanuchander | ||
| Randhir Gatla | - | Sakthi Patnaik |
 | Vajja Venkata Giridhar | - | Vedamurthy |
 | Rajeev Kanakala | - | Gadipudi Venkateswarao |
| Ragini | ||
 | Nara Rohith | - | Bhagat Panigrahi |
 | Sayaji Shinde | - | Chandrasekar Panigrahi |
| Sivannarayana | ||
| A.V.S. Subramanyam | ||
 | Vedika | - | TTBLSSS Subbalakshmi |
This film is the debut for three people. Writer/Director Chaitanya Dantuluri, Producer 'Seshu Priyanka Chalasani', and Actor 'Nara Rohith'.
C.Ashwini Dutt was the first producer who agreed to make this script into a film, by the reference of his daughter Swapna Dutt. Nara Rohith was the first actor who readily accepted to do this film as his debut, after the first narration during Feb 2009.
Initially this script was narrated to producers Dil Raju, Nallamalupu Bujji, Pyramid Saimira Group & some other independent producers way back in 2007. Though D.Rama Naidu agreed to do this film in 2009, by then the director was committed to C.Ashwini Dutt.
Initially this script was narrated to actors Siddharth, Arya, Nitin Reddy & Gopichand during 2007. After which the director decided to go ahead with a new comer.
At one stage the director wanted to produce this film independently in his production house 'StartCamera Pictures' with Randhir Gatla as 'Bhagat' titled 'Naa Peru Bhagat Singh'. Later it was Randhir Gatla who took the director to meet Swapna Dutt for a script narration. He ended up doing the antagonist 'Sakthi'
Sayaji Shinde was the only choice for 'Chandrasekar' since the script was written. A.V.S.Subramanyam's neighbor character was the only one which was not there in the original script.
The director was very much influenced by Ram Gopal Varma's 'Shiva', Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead', Yandamoori Veerendranath's 'The Diary of Mrs.Saradha'& Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Godfather' to shape up 'Baanam'.
Peter Hein was the only choice to supervise the action sequences, who is a long time close friend of the director. But on the day when the director received the Cheque, Peter Hein met with an accident on the sets of Magadheera. So the director went ahead with Ram-Lakshman who are also his childhood friends.
Based on the suggestion by Ram the director of Kattradhu Thamizh debut director Chaitanya Dantuluri decided to shoot this film in Super 16mm. Later when the producer offered Super 35mm, the director and cameraman decided to experiment with Super 16mm for which they were already prepared.
As a policy the director insisted that no Video Assist will be used during the shoot. It was on the request of Ram-Lakshman that video assist was used for 7 days only for the two action sequences.
The principal shooting commenced on May 4th 2009. The entire film shooting was completed in 54 working days in two schedules.
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