Satya Dev plays hallucinating aristocrat in Venkatesh Maha’s ‘Rao Bahadur’

Hyderabad: As director Venkatesh Maha finalises postproduction for his Telugu film Rao Bahadur, set to release in theatres on July 3, the filmmaker says discipline and routine helped him pull off the “ambitious psychological drama with elements of magical realism.”

Maha and his team were working until 4 a.m. ahead of the release, but the director said mindful eating and a diligent fitness routine kept him from fatigue. “Intermittently I had lost my way. It felt good to revert to the basics,” he said in an interview at his Hyderabad office.

Rao Bahadur stars Satya Dev in the title role as an aristocrat surviving terminal illness, nicknamed ‘the man of miracles’. The period drama is set in Brahmandanagaram, a fictional town on the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border, and traces the life of an unpredictable protagonist prone to hallucination.

The film blends psychological drama with magical realism, marking a departure in tone and scale for Maha, known for C/o Kancharapalem and Uma Maheswara Ugra Roopasya.