Exclusive: Lalo – Krishna Sada Sahayate director Ankit Sakhiya gets candid with Dhurandhar on the release of Part 2 and Hindi version

Lalo – Krishna Sada Sahayate has emerged as a landmark film in Gujarati cinema, creating history with its extraordinary box office performance and emotional connect with the audience. Crossing the Rs 100 crore mark in Gujarat and worldwide, the film has exceeded expectations and proved the power of strong storytelling and inherent content. In an exclusive conversation with Pinkvilla, director Ankit Sakhiya talks about the makers’ thoughtful approach of testing the film with different audiences before release, planning Part 2 and more, as the film prepares to reach a wider audience through its Hindi release in theaters on January 9.

Excerpts from the interview:

PV,Lalo has earned Rs 100 crore in Gujarat alone and has crossed the Rs 100 crore mark worldwide, with huge weekend collections and huge milestones at the box office. Was this expected? How do you view this success?

Answer: We never expected this in terms of collections, but we knew that the film would reach the audience because the content is strong. I don’t know how to express this success, but we all are very happy that our Gujarati film has touched the hearts of many people.

PV:Please tell us about your concept of showing the film to all groups of people before the final release and how you acted on the feedback.

Answer: Producers will always love their film because it is our baby film, but we wanted to test it on people of different classes and age groups first to get feedback. Then we made changes accordingly.

PV:Were there any scenes that evolved significantly from script to screen?

Answer: The scene where Krishna explains to Lord Lalo how he was earlier was something different in the script. There were a lot of changes when it was shot. Everything was based on improvisation and how the actor felt emotionally, but at the same time, it stayed true to the script.

PV,Lalo Hindi is releasing with a bang – two big films in two different languages ​​are making waves at the box office. How do you see it?

Answer: Dhurandhar has achieved a milestone and it is an achievement for Indian cinema. This has inspired us that if Lalo is released in Hindi also, more people will come to the theater and this is a very positive thing. I hope that people will also love Lalo a lot.

PV:Can you talk about your collaboration with the cinematographer and how the visuals supported the story?

Answer: Sunam Gajjar, our cinematographer, and I have been together since our college days. There is very good tuning between us. We used to live together 24×7, but after marriage we started living separately. Our conversations throughout the day were always about how to shoot and what lenses to use. Things became easier because of our understanding of the process. We are always on the same page.

PV:Will we see a part 2 of this?

A/N: I hope we get a story, but there are no plans to make a part 2 right now. We still have to show Part 1 to more audiences and take it to more languages. We also want to make different stories, but if something comes for Lalo 2, we will think about it.