Annapurna Studios is a production house established in 1975 by the late Telugu actor Nageswara Rao Akkineni. This studio was named after his wife Annapurna Akkineni. Located in the heart of Hyderabad city, the company mainly produces Telugu films and also provides various production and post-production facilities, including sound stages for set construction, outdoor sets, editing, dubbing and Digital Intermediate suites. In 2011, the Akkineni Family launched a non-profitable educational institute. ANR's son, actor Nagarjuna Akkineni serves as a chairman after his father’s demise. The non-profit Annapurna International School of Film and Media is also situated in the premises of Annapurna Studios.
Foundation
Actor Nageswara Rao Akkineni always wished to move the Telugu film industry from Madras to Hyderabad as this is where its audience predominantly was. With the support of the government, he started the studio primarily to encourage this migration. The studio was inaugurated by the then President of IndiaFakhruddin Ali Ahmed on 14 January 1976.
Studio floors and backlots
Annapurna Studios built its first studio floor in 1976 which spans an area of. The second studio was built in 1978 and was dedicated to the workers who had made the construction of the studio possible. This was followed by the construction of two more studios spanning each. Apart from the studio floors, Annapurna Studios also provides pre-built amenities which include the Manduva house, police station, hospital, the Manam house. The company also has several backlots which are pliant enough to use for shooting. In 2011, Annapurna Studios invested in building five new floors wherein the biggest floor spans an area of. This new facility features green rooms for artists & technicians, in-house 1520 kV generator capacity, catwalk grids for easy light settings, cyclorama/bluemat for special effects and inbuilt fire-fighting and detection systems. It also includes a space for dance rehearsals, photo-shoots and press-meets. Within the first few months this new facility had catered to over 35–40 prominent Tollywood productions including Naayak, Gabbar Singh, Mirchi, Dammu, Julayi, Shadow, Baadshah, Greeku Veerudu and Iddarammayilatho. It also played host to TV Commercial shoots for Malabar Gold, Mahindra Tractor, Joy Allukas, Jos Allukas, Kalyan Jewellers. Shooting of 3D & Reality Show projects is in the pipeline.
Post-production
Annpurna Studios provides post production and studio facilities for various Telugu films, TV shows and serials. The post production facilities include Sound, dubbing, edit and digital intermediate suites. In 2011, Annapurna Studios expanded its post-production facilities by adding two new Digital intermediate and edit suites. The DI suites house the state-of-the-art Base-light 4.3 DI System and India’s first Mistika 4K DI System. The DI Team has done extensive work on S. S. Rajamouli's blockbusters Eega and . It has also worked on Oosaravelli, Shirdi Sai, Rajanna, Routine Love Story among several others projects. Further support services include editing, dubbing, scanning and film recording.
