Director Sukumar on Pushpa The Rise: I promised Allu Arjun that I would do seven films with him

The filmmaker, ahead of December 17, made his only appearance at the film's press meet held in Hyderabad

No film aficionado would need an introduction to Sukumar's abilities as a storyteller and his quest for perfection. It's this hunger to better himself at every opportunity that has kept him away from all the promotional activities of his next, Pushpa The Rise, that's hitting theatres tomorrow. The film starring Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna, Sunil, Fahadh Faasil is releasing across the globe in five languages - Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. In his only appearance at a press meet in Hyderabad today, a restless Sukumar opened up about the film at length.

"There's a nervous excitement about the release tomorrow. I am thankful to the entire team for pulling this off. After Arya 2, Allu Arjun pulled me upwards from deep waters. I promised that I would seven movies with him then. We lost touch again later. I am lucky that I got to work with him for Pushpa. You'll see my love for Allu Arjun in the film. We always think alike," he said.

Talking about composer Devi Sri Prasad and the producers, Sukumar stated, "If the film managed to create so much buzz today, Devi Sri Prasad's music is one of the primary reasons for it. He gave a terrific finishing touch with Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava. Many people associate music with soul and I can say that he's the soul of my films. I am thankful to him for giving for such lovely numbers. I've had sleepless nights over the last few days working on this film. I am equally grateful to my producers Y Ravi Shankar and Naveen Yerneni for tolerating me all this while. They didn't ask me a single question about anything to date."

Reportedly not many believed that they could stick to their release plan. "The fact that we've wrapped our post-production and releasing it on December 17 itself is a great feat. Many thought it would be impossible. Even my daughter kept asking me if the film would release as per schedule. Rashmika has such expressive eyes and she used them to great effect. Her expressions are so piercing that as if they were communicating with me during the edits as well."

Revealing about a few funny interactions with the cinematographer Miroslaw Kuba Brozek on sets, Sukumar added, "Kuba is a Polish cinematographer and I barely knew English. We could hardly converse and yet the film has turned out beautifully. When he told 'change lens', I mistook it to be senseless and we had a major argument in the first week. We laughed over it later though. We hit it off so well and I had to tell him 'lens change' instead of 'change lens' later. I hope I'll get an opportunity to speak about the film at length after you watch it tomorrow."

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