Telugu cinema in 1976: hits, misses and films that endured

In a later interview, Sowcar Janaki spoke candidly about loneliness after her children married and after she and her husband separated. There were days, she recalled, when she returned from shooting with nobody at home to whom she could talk about the day’s work.

The importance of 1976 does not lie in Hyderabad receiving its first major film studio. That had happened two decades earlier. Its significance lies in the arrival of the scale, star power and sustained investment required to turn Hyderabad from an occasional shooting destination into a serious production centre.