The first look of Kangana Ranaut’s upcoming Mental Hai Kya was released on Monday. Directed by Prakash Kovelamudi and written by Kanika Dhillon (Ra.One, Size Zero, Kedarnath), the Balaji Motion Pictures and Karma Media co-production is being described as a thriller. The movie will go on the floors later this month.
“My next film is Mental Hai Kya, which is written by a woman screenplay writer, Kanika,” Ranaut said in an interview. “The story is about a woman who could be a murderer or a mentally ill person. It talks about mental health, but also has a light-heartedness to it.”
Ranaut has been paired with Rajkummar Rao, with whom she worked in Queen (2014). She is also shooting for the period movie Manikarnika, Krish’s biopic of Laxmibai of Jhansi.
The film “promises to be a young and edgy entertainer and it comes at a time when ‘the different and the bizzare’ are being celebrated”, Balaji founder Ekta Kapoor said in a press release. “Mental Hai Kya celebrates the beauty in imperfections and in being different and shouts out, Sanity is overrated!”
Prakash Kovelamudi is the son of veteran Telugu filmmaker K Raghavendra Rao, who directed several hit Telugu and Hindi films starring Jeetendra, Sridevi and Jaya Prada in the 1980s. Kovelamudi has previously directed the Telugu films Anaganaga O Dheerudu (2011) and Size Zero (2015).