Netflix original Pitta Kathalu seems to take off from the point where Lust Stories (2018) ended. The trailer for the new movie, which streams from February 19, makes its women — played by Shruti Haasan, Eesha Rebba, Amala Paul and Saanve Megghana — the centerpiece of the puzzle. It'll be interesting to see, for a change, what the men would do around them. The trailer hints at different forms of betrayal and abuse, two qualities that were extensively mined in Paava Kathaigal.
Of course, this is just the trailer and we get just a glimpse into the lives of the characters. Will the movie live up to the hype surrounding the names of the cast and crew? The anthology is directed by four leading nouveau filmmakers — Tharun Bhascker, BV Nandini Reddy, Nag Ashwin and Sankalp Reddy.
The best way to make a two-hour movie in a short span is to churn out an anthology, as each filmmaker is given around half an hour to tell a story. As seen from the recent success of Amazon Prime Video's Putham Pudhu Kaalai and Netflix's Paava Kathaigal in Tamil (both released in the final quarter of 2020), it's clear that the format is here to stay for a long time.
Pitta Kathalu is not the first major Telugu anthology to make noise. Praveen Sattaru's 2014 anthology Chandamama Kathalu won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. It created quite a ripple back then as omnibuses weren't in vogue yet. But now that we've been trained to appreciate this particular form of storytelling, we'll be more welcoming of such projects henceforth.