Anant Mahadevan’s Red Alert: the War Within premieres at Stuttgart

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Director Anant Mahadevan is on cloud nine. His film Red Alert- The War Within is all set to have its World Premiere at the Stuttgart Film Festival in Germany. Bollywood Hungama spoke to Anant, who was very excited to share the details of this event. ”Red Alert – The War Within has been selected in the competition section for the Stuttgart Film Festival scheduled to take place from the 13th – 19th of July this year. It is also the closing film of the festival on the 19th of July. This is probably the first time that the same director’s film has been selected for 2 consecutive years. Last year my film Staying Alive was selected for the same festival and now this year we have Red Alert – The War Within taking part in the competition and even having its World Premiere at the Stuttgart Film Festival”

The film has a very sensitive yet topical theme. As Anant puts it, ”Red Alert – The War Within is a true story of an Andhra farm labourer who gets caught in a group of Naxalites and how he evolves out of the entire experience forms the crux of the story. Today our newspaper headlines are filled with stories of Maoists and the Reds and hence the story becomes very relevant and topical. Even though the film maybe about Naxals in India but it’s presented in such a way that it can be identified by people across the world. It has a universal appeal. The film has no fabricated dialogues. Every line in the film has either been actually spoken by a Naxal or the law and is derived from a lot of research on interviews done with them. Every scene is true, every character is real and even the names of the character are taken from the actual Naxalites’ names.”

The film has an ensemble cast of some of the finest performers of our country. Speaking about the cast, Anant says, ”The film’s main protagonist – Narsimha the farm labourer- is played by Sunil Shetty. He is the one who leads the audience through his journey. Every actor has a role of a life time written for him as destiny, and this I truly believe is that kind of role for Sunil Shetty. Sunil Shetty has completely broken his image of an action hero and given such a mature performance that it’s hard to believe. Besides Sunil Shetty, the film has an ensemble cast of actors like Naseruddin Shah, Vinod Khanna, Aashish Vidyarthi, Seema Bsiwas, Ayesha Dharker, Bhagyashree, Makrand Deshpande and Gulshan Grover. Every single role has been given to a known actor and great pain has been taken to get the right casting.”

Considering the film has a real-life story and powerful actors, what are his expectations about the film’s chances at the festival. ”The film has been made keeping in mind even the international audience. It has a certain style of filmmaking which the international audience and jury expect. We have taken care of the minutest details to ensure that the international audience does not mock us. I genuinely hope that this film reaches a level of not spectacular world cinema but simple world cinema. It will only encourage me to make more qualitative cinema.”

Anant Mahadevan along with Sunil Shetty and producers T.P. Aggarwal and Rahul Aggarwal would be present for the World Premiere of Red Alert- The War Within at the Stuttgart Film Festival on the 19th of July.The film is likely to hit theatres in the latter half (Aug- Sept) of this year.