Pilla Zamindar

Pilla Zamindar (transl. “Little Zamindar”) is a 2011 Telugu coming-of-age comedy drama written and directed by G. Ashok. Nani plays a spoilt rich heir who has to live like an ordinary student to claim his inheritance, with Haripriya and Bindu Madhavi alongside Srinivas Avasarala, Rao Ramesh and Nagineedu. Loosely based on the 2006 Korean film A Millionaire’s First Love and partly a retelling of The Ultimate Gift (2006), it was released on 14 October 2011 and was a commercial success.

What the story is about

Praveen “PJ” Jayaramaraju, grandson of the wealthy zamindar Rudra Ramaraju, is arrogant and careless with money. On his 18th birthday he is read his dying grandfather’s will. He will inherit everything, but only if he earns a degree as a common man, without luxuries, at Srimathi Mangamma Government Degree College; finishes it within three years; and lives on very little money at Rajanna’s hostel in the village of Siripuram, like the scholarship students. One more condition, the will says, will be revealed three months after he joins.

PJ arrives in the village, meets the hostel warden Rajanna, and struggles to adjust, slowly making friends such as Kanna Babu, Jaatheeyam and Maqbool. Sindhu, the girl who broke up with him for cheating in an exam, turns out to be studying at the same college. Why his grandfather set these conditions is something the film reveals in its own time.

Cast

• Nani as Praveen Jayaramaraju “PJ”
• Haripriya as Sindhu
• Bindu Madhavi as Amrutha, PJ’s cousin
• Srinivas Avasarala as Kanna Babu
• Dhanraj as Jaatheeyam
• Thagubothu Ramesh as Maqbool
• Rao Ramesh as Principal “Military” Rajanna
• Nagineedu as Rudra Ramaraju
• M. S. Narayana as Uddhandam, a Telugu lecturer
• Vennela Kishore as Sarkar
• Randhir Gattla as Ammiraju

Making of the film

The film reunited Nani and Srinivas Avasarala after Ashta Chamma, and Ashok brought back much of his crew from Aakasa Ramanna: editor Praveen Poodi, cinematographer Sai Sriram, dialogue writer Chandrashekar and art director Manivasan. Kannada actress Haripriya was cast as Sindhu. M. S. Narayana was given the role of a Telugu lecturer, the job he did before becoming an actor, and Meghna Naidu appears in a special song. Shooting began in October 2010, mostly in Hyderabad and Guntur. A release planned for April 2011 slipped because of the Telugu film industry strike that year, and the film was finished in August.

Selvaganesh composed the music. Krishna Chaitanya wrote five of the songs and Sri Mani the sixth, and the soundtrack was launched by Aditya Music at Prasads Lab, Hyderabad, on 19 September 2011 (Idlebrain).

Reception

Jeevi of Idlebrain.com rated the film 3/5 and praised Nani’s performance, and CNN-IBN’s reviewer called it “above average”, with Nani impressive. It did well commercially: the trade site T2BLive counts it among 2011’s successful Telugu films, and The Times of India reported Nani “thrilled” with the response. We have not found a box-office figure from a named outlet.

Where to watch Pilla Zamindar

We do not have a confirmed streaming listing for Pilla Zamindar on file. If we verify one with a platform, it will appear on this page.

Sources: the Wikipedia article on Pilla Zamindar and the reviews and reports it cites, linked above; our own cast and crew records.