Hemanth M Rao: I did not write Sapta Sagaradaache Ello with Rakshit in mind; it was meant for Puneeth Rajkumar

Kannada filmmaker Hemanth M Rao had recently revealed that Sapta Sagaradaache Ello is a story that he wrote years ago, when he’d just assisted Jacob Verghese on Prithvi with Puneeth Rajkumar and felt confident enough to direct a film on his own. So, there’s no question of whether he wrote it keeping leading man Rakshit Shetty in mind, he says. The film has eventually become Hemanth and Rakshit’s second collaboration after Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu, but if he had made Sapta Sagaradaache Ello more than a decade ago, it would have had a different leading man.

Speaking to the online portal Kannada Picchar, Hemanth explained, “When I wrote Sapta Sagaradaache Ello, I did not even know that there was someone called Rakshit Shetty. Honestly, I began writing it keeping Puneeth sir in mind; I’d even discussed the basic plotline with him and he thought it was interesting. Over the years, I have narrated the story to a lot of people, including Yash, several of who liked it but couldn’t collaborate with me at that point because of certain elements and how the industry was at that point.”

The film, adds Hemanth, needed a certain budget, which was not easy to come by for a newcomer director. As a two-film old filmmaker with a certain standing in the industry, it’s worked out well that Sapta Sagaradaache Ello got made now, he reckons. Over the years, the script has had several rewrites, a lot of which came from the maturity he gained, making it a far more intense and poetic story than it was back in the day when he first wrote it.

Sapta Sagaradaache Ello, was eventually produced by Rakshit’s Paramvah Studios. The film is being presented in two parts, with the first releasing on September 1 and the second on October 20. Rakshit is paired with Rukmini Vasanth and Chaithra J Achar in the film.