Exclusive! 'Focus' director Surya Teja: The audience enjoys watching the film, as much as we love making it

'Focus' has been running successfully in the theatres for the last few weeks and is continuing to garner appreciation for itself. The suspense crime thriller is one of the few Tollywood films that has managed to strike the right chord with the audience. The credit for that must go to the film's creator, debutant Surya. We had an exclusive conversation with the director Surya Teja, who talked about how he stuck with the idea of Focus, how they felt about the audience response, the casting of the veteran actors, and his love for the crime genre.

Talking about how he was struck with the idea of Focus, Surya said, ''I helmed the official advertisements funded by the Telangana government. Therefore, I had to travel with the IAS, IPS, police commissioner, IG and DIG officers for the work purpose. I learned how they deal with the cases from their point of view. Then I decided to write a crime story, and it is Focus.''

He added, ''Script work for 'Focus' was done in eight months. There were many crime thrillers in our Tollywood. But, the investigation process wasn’t shown in the films properly. We stuck to that point and showed the process of investigation and trial and the examination in minute detail. Every minute is engaging, and no one can guess what will happen next.''

Upon witnessing the overwhelming response, Surya adds, ''It’s a different type of film; we have tried doing something new even in a crime thriller. The audience enjoyed watching the film, as much as we loved making it. We are getting an incredible response to the film currently. As a debutant, I was worried about how the audience would receive my film and how their response would be. While I was watching the film in theatre with the audience, I saw people clapping and whistling. This sort of audience response is surprising to me. I am floored.''

The debutant director heaps praise on the actors he roped in for the film. He says, ''We were able to cast people from across the country. Outstanding performances of Suhasini Maniratnam, Sayaji Shinde, Bhanuchander, Jeeva and others are also a reason for the huge response to our film. Suhasini garu is the main pillar of the film. When we approached her to narrate the story, she wondered about the idea that we were talking about and immediately accepted our offer to star in the film. And she was the first choice for our film as we believed that she was the only one actor who could do justice to the character we imagine.''

Speaking of his favourite filmmakers, Surya said, ''Known for his dedication to surrealist imagery and unconventional storytelling techniques, Christopher Nolan is my all-time favourite director. He takes scenes to the next level with his style of filmmaking. With his innovative work, he introduced the global audience to a completely different kind of storytelling. When it comes to Tollywood, I love the narration of Puri Jagannadh sir. He is the one who created influential films with engaging content. He doesn’t take a single step back what he believes.''

'Focus' stars Suhasini, Sayaji Shinde, Muskan Arora, Raghu Babu, Surya Bhagawan, Bhanuchander, Jeeva, Ashu Reddy, Bharath Reddy, and Vijay Shankar. The technical crew includes J Prabhakar Reddy as the Director of Photography, Satya G as the editor and Vinod Yajamanya as the music director.