Inside ‘Biker’: Abhilash Reddy on India’s first motocross film

At the UV Creations bureau successful Hyderabad, manager Abhilash Reddy pauses mid-rush to speech astir his Telugu movie Biker, touted arsenic India’s archetypal motocross film. The squad is successful the last stretch, optimising it for large-format screens — Dolby Vision, PCX, EPIQ and PXL. “When I began moving connected Biker, soon aft my web bid Loser, Hyderabad had lone 1 large-format screen. It’s breathtaking to spot however galore we person now. We person enactment important absorption connected dependable plan and colour grading to suit these formats,” helium says.

After 2 seasons of the web bid Loser, Abhilash directed the 2024 diagnostic movie Maa Nanna Superhero, and is known to gravitate towards stories rooted successful athletics and familial ties, peculiarly begetter figures. “I grew up playing basketball,” helium says. “While studying B.Sc. Electronics, I discovered storytelling done abbreviated films. My begetter was incredibly supportive and encouraged maine to articulation Annapurna School of Film and Media.” A self-described middle-class upbringing, and witnessing his father’s struggles, continues to pass his affectional lens.

His breakout bid Loser, which followed struggling athletes navigating cricket and badminton, brought him manufacture attraction — yet starring to histrion Sharwanand recommending him to UV Creations.

The thought for Biker took signifier with collaborators M.V.S. Bharadwaj and Shrawan Madala, with whom Abhilash worked earlier for Loser. “We had nary notation points, determination are nary mainstream motocross films here, lone racing videos connected YouTube. But that’s what made it exciting.”

While Indian cinema has featured high-speed biking—think Dhoom oregon the Tamil movie Valimai — off-road ungraded biking remains mostly unexplored.

The communicative was sparked by an anecdote narrated by motocross racer friend, Vignesh, from Coimbatore. “It is an incredibly demanding athletics — physically and mentally. I began wondering what a rider’s affectional headspace looks like, particularly erstwhile dealing with idiosyncratic upheavals.”

Starring Sharwanand, Malvika Nair and Rajasekhar arsenic the father-coach, Biker traces 3 phases of a rider’s life. Sharwanand underwent a carnal translation for the role. “He was 85-90 kilograms erstwhile we began, and worked retired to shed weight.”

But filming came with a challenge: helmets obscure expression. Abhilash workaround this to acceptable parts of the movie successful the 1990s and aboriginal 2000s, erstwhile half-helmets were common, allowing for disposable emotion. The clip play besides helped showcase the two-stroke bikes and modulation to four-stroke vehicles.

Shot implicit 120 days, with implicit 60 dedicated to biking sequences, the movie was mostly changeable successful Indonesia’s Kendari and Sumbawa regions. “We worked with an 80-member unit and hired section riders, portion ensuring the terrain matched Coimbatore and Hyderabad for authenticity.”

Safety remained paramount. “A atrocious autumn tin extremity a career,” says Abhilash. Action choreographer Dhilip Subbarayan, who had worked connected Valimai, helped plan the sequences, consulting riders crossed Coimbatore, Bengaluru and Kerala.

Cinematographer Yuvaraj’s squad utilized up to 8 cameras — including GoPros — for definite sequences, resulting successful extended footage that took astir 2 months to edit. Anil Pasala, collaborator since Loser, returned arsenic editor, portion dependable plan was handled by Sync Cinema’s Sachin Sudhakaran and Hariharan Muralidharan. Abhilash credits accumulation decorator Rajeevan Nambiar, composer Ghibran and VFX supervisor Avinash Kamalakannan for the film’s method finesse. “Imagine watching 30 bikers connected surface astatine erstwhile — the visuals and dependable person to beryllium spot on.”

Since the teaser and trailer dropped, comparisons to Jersey and adjacent F1 person surfaced — thing Abhilash finds some nerve-wracking and flattering. “I americium a immense instrumentality of manager Gowtam Tinnanuri and loved however helium balanced cricket and the affectional play successful Jersey. My movie is successful a much commercialized zone; it has some standard and drama.”

A fewer backstage screenings of Biker have elicited affirmative reactions wrong the movie industry. Biker releases successful Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam connected April 3, with a Hindi mentation to follow.

“I’m an introvert,” says the 33-year-old Abhilash, astir arsenic an aside. “I bash not be manufacture parties. It feels bully erstwhile my enactment speaks for itself.” His adjacent task is with shaper Dil Raju.