EXCLUSIVE: Rana Daggubati’s Bold Take On Unified North-South Film Industries; Says, “We’ve Lost A Lot Of Our Roots And Culture Within Telugu Space”

Ramanaidu Daggubati, known professionally as Rana Daggubati, is an Indian actor, film producer, and entrepreneur who primarily works in Telugu cinema, in addition to Tamil and Hindi films. He is a recipient of several accolades, including a National Film Award, two Nandi Awards, six SIIMA Awards and three Filmfare Awards South. In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Bubble, Rana Daggubati addresses how content can be unified if all regional industries alongside Bollywood can come together for a Pan India.

Rana Daggubati Opens Up On Merging Industries And Unified Content

When asked why can’t content from different industries, be it north or south, be unified into one, Rana Daggubati answered, “If all of us decide to move to one city and work from one place, great—there would be no problem. Let’s pick somewhere in the middle of India, like Bhopal or Goa, and let all industries move there. Everyone in favour? No issue. We’d become one unified industry overnight. I’m already there, waiting for you guys! But it’s hard, it is. We speak different languages, and it’s quite difficult to communicate.”

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He added, “Also, something we’ve noticed recently, at least in Telugu films, is that in the attempt to go pan-India, we’ve lost a lot of our roots and cultural essence within the Telugu space. Now the mindset has shifted, every film doesn’t have to step out of its land. There’s value in creating something culturally rooted in Telugu, and we should just try to make it work there. India is very different from other countries in that sense. Like they say, ‘unity in diversity,’ and I think the entertainment industry often sets the tone for that. We can exist in many different places. Take, for example, the Malayalam industry; they can make a film in four crores, and that’s considered a standard budget, not a small one.”

Rana Compares Working In Different Industries

The actor said, “But doing the same thing in Bombay invites all kinds of conversations, ‘Oh, this is an indie film,’ or ‘this is too small.’ That’s the difference; I’m saying the country functions very differently in that way. There will always be cinema, and it will keep evolving. I think where we can help each other is in areas like technology, distribution platforms, and finding mechanisms that work across the board. Look at the West Silicon Valley, tech it’s everywhere. Take Netflix, for example: it’s more of a tech company than a content company. It’s a brilliantly engineered brand. We don’t have that here. Even though each of our cities has an IT sector, they rarely interact with entertainment. That’s where I think a real merger needs to happen.”

Rana will be seen in Rana Naidu Season 2 on June 13th 2025.

Watch The Full Interview

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