GUERILLAS ON THE PROWL
The three-part film comprises one flick in Telugu, one in the Lambada dialect and another in Deccani Urdu. The films have candid frames with real events as backdrops
“Crazy ideas”, followed by more “crazy ideas”. That’s what you will hear while in conversation with indie filmmakers Sharath Kumar and Rohit Penmatsa. The two, who are working on a first-of-its-kind Hyderabad trilogy, are even ready to take on Rajamouli’s
Baahubali. And why not. For these indie filmmakers, who find “the run of the mill Telugu films almost humiliating” to their intellect, this is just another “crazy idea”. There is, however, a method to it.
The three-part film comprises one flick in Telugu, one in the Lambada dialect and another in Deccani Urdu. The films have candid frames with real events as backdrops. The project began with the November 2013 Children’s Film Festival, the second one was in the backdrop of Telangana’s first Independence Day at Golconda Fort while the third was shot in Numaish.
“Our friends joke and call us ‘event filmmakers’. When we shot for Sheesh Mahal at the film fest, it was so beautifully lit and Ranbir Kapoor was on stage. One of our friends even pointed out that, perhaps, even art directors like Thota Tharani would not be able to bring that kind of a set together,” says Sharath, also known as Sasi.
But the right words to describe what Sasi and Rohit do would be “guerilla filmmaking”. With these real events turning into their sets, their budget also stays small. The first film, which follows the lives of a rag picker, a college student, a Hyderabadi canteen owner and a documentary filmmaker, took only 27 days to shoot and was made within a budget of `10 lakh.
The Lambada film cost `3.5 lakh and the Numaish one about `9 lakh. “So we have three feature films made in `22 lakh,” they say.
Sasi adds, “We may not be rich in funds but are rich in resources. We have friends backing us with money, talent and equipment.”
The duo even have Gnanasekar, who is the cinematographer of Malli Malli Idi Rani Roju and films like Vedam, as their director of photography. Sasi, 38, comes from a family that is into film distribution, Rohit, 25 and a native of Vijayawada, worked previously as a film critic.
With the films in post-production, Sasi and Rohit are hoping to “chase Baahubali”. Even as Sasi lights up with the idea of just having one theatre screening their film on the release date of Baahubali, Rohit joins in saying, “Why not? It sounds like fun. I would love it if I did not get tickets to Baahubali and ended up being surprised by an indie film.”