Rajanna

Rajanna is a 2011 Telugu period drama written and directed by V. Vijayendra Prasad and produced by Nagarjuna under Annapurna Studios. Nagarjuna plays the revolutionary Rajanna, with Sneha, Shwetha Menon and the child actor Baby Annie, who carries much of the film. Set in the Telangana of the Nizam era, it is partly inspired by the struggle against the Razakars and by the freedom fighter Suddala Hanmanthu. M. M. Keeravani composed the music. It won six state Nandi Awards, including the silver Nandi for Second Best Feature Film.

What the story is about

In the early 1950s, the village of Nelakondapalli in Khammam district lives under the feudal rule of a cruel landlady the villagers call “Dorasani”. Mallamma, a little girl raised by her grandfather Sambayya, has a remarkable singing voice, which he is strangely anxious to keep hidden. She is devoted to a tulsi plant that the villagers secretly revere, because their revolutionary leader Rajanna lies buried beneath it.

When Mallamma sings at Dorasani’s house during a music lesson meant for the landlady’s own untalented daughter, Dorasani is consumed by envy, flogs her and forbids her to sing. Mallamma’s defiance sets her on a path that leads all the way to Delhi, where she hopes to sing before Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and ask him to free her village. Along the way the film tells, in flashback, the story of Rajanna himself.

Cast and crew

• Baby Annie as Mallamma
• Nagarjuna as Rajanna
• Sneha as Lachamma, Rajanna’s wife
• Shwetha Menon as Dorasani, the landlady
• Nassar as Kulkarni, a music teacher
• Vijayakumar as Shyama Shastri, a Carnatic musician
• Hema as Samakka, who shelters Mallamma in Delhi
• Mukesh Rishi as a landlord
• Supreeth, Ajay and Pradeep Rawat as Rajanna’s aides
• Ravi Kale and Ajay Ghosh as Dorasani’s aides
• Saurabh Dubey as Jawaharlal Nehru

Writer and director: V. Vijayendra Prasad. Producer: Nagarjuna (Annapurna Studios). Music: M. M. Keeravani, released by Vel Records. Action choreography: S. S. Rajamouli. Runtime: 129 minutes.

Making the film

The film was announced in 2010. Sneha was cast opposite Nagarjuna again after their earlier hit Sri Ramadasu, and the Malayalam actress Shwetha Menon took the villain’s role. A large village set and a bungalow set were built near Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad; on 5 April 2011 they accidentally caught fire, causing a loss of ₹7 million, and filming resumed two weeks later.

Release and reviews

The film was scheduled for 23 December 2011 but was brought forward to 21 December after the good response to its music, according to Wikipedia; our record gives 22 December 2011. Reviews were strongly positive. Rediff‘s review was headlined “Rajanna is brilliant”, Full Hyderabad found “Mallamma’s story is brilliantly written” and singled out Baby Annie, and StudentLive gave it 4 out of 5, calling it “a genuine effort” that “is sure to touch your hearts”. It was dubbed into Hindi as Hindustani Yodha and later into Tamil as Raja Singh. We have not found box-office figures from a named outlet.

Where to watch Rajanna

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

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