Saakshyam () is a 2018 Indian Telugu-language fantasy action film written and directed by Sriwass, and produced by Abhishek Pictures. The film stars Bellamkonda Sreenivas, Pooja Hegde and Jagapathi Babu. The plot depicts Viswa (Bellamkonda Sreenivas), a wealthy NRI, who falls in love with Soundarya Lahari (Pooja Hegde) and follows her to India but gets tangled up in issues involving her family. Over time, he realizes that nature itself has guided him back to his homeland to fulfill a greater mission.
The film was officially launched in May 2017. Principal photography began in July of the same year at a set at Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad, with filming taking place in Tamil Nadu, Varanasi, Karnataka, Dubai, New York City, Grand Canyon and New Jersey. It was scored by Harshavardhan Rameshwar, with cinematography by Arthur A. Wilson, production design by A. S. Prakash and editing by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao.
Saakshyam was theatrically released on 27 July 2018, and it was considered an overall success at the box office. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the VFX, dialogue, direction, lead casts performances, concept, music, background score and action sequences, while criticism was directed towards the screenplay.
Plot A mob attempts to seize a cow and her calf, and several people try to pursue them. Meanwhile, at Raju Garu’s home, the family is assembled for his son’s naming ceremony. Suddenly, the same people from the mob arrive and reveal that Munuswamy’s brothers have abducted the mother cow—one that belonged to the temple—along with many others. Incensed, Raju Garu confronts Munuswamy’s brother, rescues the cattle, and returns them home.
The news of his brothers' humiliation reaches Munuswamy, and he and his three brothers go to Raju Garu's house, where the celebration is going on. They brutally kill every member of the family, except for Raju Garu's wife, who is injured. Raju Garu manages to distract the brothers while his wife runs away with the child, but she becomes weak and is unable to continue due to her deep injuries. Just then, the calf whose mother was saved by Raju Garu comes and stands in front of his wife. She takes this as a sign, wraps the child in a shawl, and ties him onto the calf. Munuswamy and his brothers arrive just in time to see the calf running away, Munuswamy's second brother slit Raju Guru's Wife's throat to death and a chase ensues. The injured calf manages to evade Munuswamy and land the baby on a truck carrying soil. The villains see the child falling down the cliff and believe him to be dead. In order to conceal their crime, they set fire to the cowshed, because of the belief that even animals can become a witness to their sins.
The story then goes into a narration where the narrator explains that even though Munuswamy is happy that he has destroyed every witness to his crime, he has forgotten that the five elements of nature that are present everywhere have witnessed his crimes and will surely do justice for his atrocities.
Meanwhile, the child is carried to a soil mine, where the truck dumps him along with the soil. A Hindu saint sees the child, takes him to Kasi, and leaves him in a temple. A childless couple, Siva Prasad and his wife, are there to pray for a child and are overwhelmed to see him. The temple priest names him Viswaagna because it is nature's order for them to raise the child. Later, the couple leaves for the United States with the child.
20 years later, Siva Prasad and his wife are shown to be celebrating the success of their company. A reporter asks about their son Viswa, who would be taking over the multibillion-dollar empire, but Siva Prasad states that Viswa is not interested in taking over the business as he is interested in developing games. Viswa and his friend are shown to be in the process of developing a new video game, which they are sending to a company to be released.
Unfortunately, their game is rejected due to a lack of culture. Viswa and his friend run into a girl named Soundarya Lahari, a Hindu spiritual preacher who came to the US to preach on Indian mythology. Viswa is instantly smitten, so he and his friend follow her to get her help in adding cultural elements to their game. However, Soundarya is offended by their offer of money and says flatly that culture is not something to be sold. Viswa and his friend help Soundarya's sister and brother-in-law secure jobs using his influence, which leads to Soundarya reluctantly agreeing to help Viswa.
She introduces the group to Valmiki, her childhood friend and an IT professional who has an interest in Indian mythology. He helps by giving them a unique idea for a game which resembles Viswa's life story, about a boy whose entire family was killed by villains and the five elements of nature taking revenge on the villains through the boy. Viswa is impressed by Valmiki's idea and hires him to develop the game.
Soundarya simultaneously leaves for India to see her father Tagore, who is bedridden because of Munuswamy's gang after fighting against them in court. Viswa follows her to India and starts developing the video game there.
Meanwhile, Munuswamy is ordered to kill Soundarya as a warning to Tagore. Later, in multiple scenarios, Soundarya is saved by Viswa from Veeraswamy, Munuswamy's first brother. Viswa eventually kills Veeraswamy by using the elements of air and earth, and is shocked to discover that the events of his video game are playing out in real life. When he goes to Kashi, to give salutations from his mother's side to Kashi Vishwanath temple, he accidentally meets the second brother of Munuswamy, who he kills using the element of fire. Viswa tries his best to stop it, but fails. Meanwhile, Munuswamy is on the search for his brothers' killer.
Soundarya begins to reciprocate Viswa's love because of his efforts to save her from Munuswamy's brother and agrees to marry him. Meanwhile, Valmiki designs the full game and comes back to India and meets his grandfather who is practicing Vedic astrology and was both looking for the bad omens of Munuswamy and his brothers and fixing the marriage dates of Viswa and Soundarya.
After hearing Valmiki's game concept, Valmiki's grandfather understands that this is the vengeance against Munuswamy and his brothers by Mother Nature because of their sins against Viswa's biological family. He remembers that in front of young Valmiki, a younger Munuswamy and his brothers criticized the astrologer and denies God to live on their own terms. He reveals to Valmiki that this screenplay was written by Mother Nature through him. She witnessed all the incidents and selected him to design the situation they are in, and it cannot be stopped by anyone.
Meanwhile, Viswa's business rival, Shakti, joins hands with Munuswamy to take over his major stakes in India and abducts Viswa, threatening him to give them the shares documents. Viswa comes to a deal with them and all the elements take revenge on Shakti and Munuswamy's gang through Viswa as witnessed by the Sky.
Cast Bellamkonda Sreenivas as Viswaagna "Viswa" Pooja Hegde as Soundarya Lahari Jagapathi Babu as Munuswamy Ravi Kishan as Veeraswamy, Munuswamy's first brother Ashutosh Rana as Munuswamy's second brother Madhu Guruswamy as Munuswamy's third brother Kabir Duhan Singh as Viswa's business rival Jayaprakash as Siva Prasad, Viswa's adopted father Pavithra Lokesh as Viswa's adopted mother Vennela Kishore as Viswa's friend Rao Ramesh as Tagore, Soundarya's father Posani Krishna Murali as Defense Lawyer Sameer as Raju Garu's brother Jhansi as Soundarya's sister Brahmaji as Soundarya's brother-in-law Krishna Bhagavaan as Soundarya's paternal uncle Hema as Soundarya's aunt Annapoorna as Soundarya's grandmother Raghu Babu as Siva Prasad's assistant Mahadevan as Munuswamy's aide Kasi Vishwanath as Advocate Murthy Surya as Hindu Saint Ananth Babu as Priest
Extended cameo appearance Ananta Sriram as Valmiki, a game designer
Cameo appearances Sarath Kumar as Raju Garu, Viswa's biological father Meena as Viswa's biological mother Sri Pusapati as Sri, a Cognos developer
Production
Development In February 2017, it was reported that Bellamkonda Sreenivas would collaborate with director Sriwass for his next project. Sriwass narrated the script to Bellamkonda Sreenivas a couple of months before the release of Jaya Janaki Nayaka (2017). In the first narration itself, Sreenivas liked it and agreed to the project. Writer Sai Madhav Burra was signed for the dialogues of the film. The film was produced by Abhishek Nama under his banner Abhishek Pictures.
On the story, Sriwass said "This is going to be my sixth film. Its story and script is going to be completely different from my previous films. It is written keeping the changing trends in mind, and to suit all sections."
The film's launch event with a puja ceremony was held on 21 May 2017 at Ramanaidu Studios, which saw the attendance of noted personalities from the Telugu film industry. Sriwass' daughter Vedaswa handed over the script while Raghava Lawrence switched on the camera. Director V. V. Vinayak sounded the clapboard while director Boyapati Srinu took the first shot on Sreenivas.
Sreenivas said "Once I greenlighted Saakshyam, I didn't accept any other project. Since the movie has significant action sequences, I wanted to give my best. I went to Dubai to get physically trained". A. S. Prakash served as the production designer for the film. Prior to starting the first shooting schedule, the team constructed a set at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, for filming an action sequence.
In May 2017, Devi Sri Prasad was reported as composing the music for the film, but Harshavardhan Rameshwar was signed as the music director. Other technicians includes cinematographer Arthur A. Wilson, editor Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao, production designer A. S. Prakash, stunt director Peter Hein, and costume designers Nischay Niyogi and Neeta Lulla, and dance choreographers Shobi Paulraj, Raghu, and Bhanu.
Themes According to Bellamkonda Sreenivas, the story revolves around the five elements (Panchamahabhuta) – Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Aether.
About the theme, director Sriwass said "I was inspired by life. It has always been my aim to make movies in different genres and all my films have been like that so far. Saakshyam, however, is a multi-genre film which will explore five different themes with drastically different backdrops."
"There's been a lot of talk about Saakshyam being a horror thriller. That's not true. There are no supernatural elements as such — let's just say, the story incorporates five elements of nature that we all experience in our everyday life, into its screenplay", Sreenivas on the story of the film.
Casting Bellamkonda Sreenivas plays the video game developer and designer in the film. Sreenivas trained in BMX racing, flyboarding and jet skiing for his character in the film. In June 2017, Pooja Hegde was confirmed to play the female lead. Hegde portraits a middle class Brahmin girl from a traditional and conservative family. The makers were confident that she would do full justice to the role. It was reported that her outfits in the film were going to be the highlight of the film. Neeta Lulla designed her costumes in the film. About playing a spiritual leader in the film, Hegde said "I have always focused on the character than my look."
Jagapathi Babu was signed to play the role of the main antagonist in the film. Ravi Kishan, Ashutosh Rana, Sarath Kumar, Meena, Jayaprakash, Pavitra Lokesh, Brahmaji, Madhu Guruswamy, and Vennela Kishore were also roped in to play supporting roles in the film.
Filming