Filmmaker Raam Reddy’s Thithi is probably one of the most sought-after films post the number of screenings it has had and the number of accolades it has won. Reddy, who can easily be regarded as one of Kannada film industry’s rising stars attended the ongoing Dharamshala International Festival 2016 and News18.com caught up with him for a quick candid chat.
“When my 3 passions – writing, visual and music– came into one, it became a default choice after which I never looked back”, recalls Reddy while talking about his first brush with filmmaking during his college days.
The pride that one would accept to accompany the director, whose debut film is a recipient of the National Award and also the second Kannada film to win the Locaroe Award only after Pattabhirama Reddy’s Samsakara -is nowhere to be seen as he self-effacingly sits to answer our questions.
When asked about his future plans, he quips, “it's something to do with magic realism."
Stating that it is just baby steps towards his next ‘global’ project, he says, “It’ll probably have professional actors this time. I’m taking it as a challenge because earlier I worked without any actors and now I’m doing this. Hoping to position it more as a global film – so it’ll be a film from India that hopefully will not be pigeonholed into any of the sub-categories.”
Despite the fact that Thithi did not feature any of the professional actors per say, he still received rave reviews and a huge support from Bollywood celebrities. Aamir Khan took to Twitter, not just once, but four times to call it a ‘must-watch’ while Anurag Kashyap shared that he’s jealous of his success and talent. He feels elated over this “beautiful and the unexpected gesture” shown by Bollywood in “embracing an independent Kannada film that is outside any of the typical structures”.
He says, “They didn’t embrace it as an art film or a commercial film or a regional film – but just as an Indian film that they saw. There was an unconditional support from Bollywood. It’s one of those times where your faith is reaffirmed that if you do your work, you’ll be appreciated.”
So is he planning for Bollywood? “I don’t have plans to step into any industry – an industry comes with a lot of structure that I tend to rebel against. I want to make films that are dictated by content and intentions and bridge what we think is entertaining. Thithi did exactly that.”
With the words of appreciation being showered on his regional language film, one might expect for its Hindi remake but despite the offers, he’s not even considering a remake. “We have had a lot of offers but I felt that Thithi was such a culturally rooted film that it I didn’t feel it right to remake it. There’s a character named Gaddappa – the film was kind of written for him. It is not fair to the soul of the character to replace it with someone and make it another way”.
Thithi – a dramatic comedy – more of a sattire is about how three generations of sons react to the death of the oldest, a man named Century Gowda, in their clan. Thithi, which can otherwise have various meanings, refers to ‘death’ or ‘funeral’ in this film.
Comments
0 comment