Turning director from lyricist was a fun learning experience: Punit Rangaswamy

Lyricist Punit Rangaswamy is making his directorial debut with the Kannada film Elumale, produced by Tharun Sudhir and Atlanta Nagendra, and set to release this week. Punit says he had to take up a more responsible role as a director. “When I was a writer, all I had to do was meet the director’s deadlines and their creative expectations, but as a director in this film, I had to take responsibility of handling 38 departments, which was a fun learning experience,” he adds.

Speaking about the title of the film, Punit says the film is based on incidents around Elumalai, in Tamil Nadu, “Elumale also means seven mountains, there are seven characters in the film that play a major role in the script, which is why we thought it was apt to give this title for the film,” he explains.

On casting Raanna and Priyanka Achar in the lead roles, he says, “Since this is my first film, I wanted actors who could act well and would also resemble the characters I had penned. I cannot imagine anyone but these actors to play these characters. The film also stars senior actors T S Nagabharana, Kishore and Jagapathi Babu.”