The love and longing for their city, the magnetic power of the ocean and a deep feeling of contentment with their hometown are some of the emotional elements that only a Vizagite can strongly relate to.
When shuttler-turned-filmmaker Sarat Palanki came to the city in 2006-07 to do research on the script of his first film, he was surprised to see how contented the people of the city were, with no hurry to plunge into the crazy race of metropolitan madness. “It took me a while to understand a Vizagite’s intense desire to stay in the city come what may, and more importantly, a complete satisfaction with their way of life in a small city. No other city in this part of the country has this trait to pull its residents strongly together. Be it Hyderabad or Vijayawada, most people are racing to go somewhere,” says Palanki.
He would see how every evening the whole city would converge at the beach and spend time there by the azure waters of the Bay of Bengal. “I myself got addicted to the sea,” says the filmmaker.
It was this unusual character of the city and the sea that touched him the most, which eventually influenced the script of his first full-length feature film Ala , which means wave.
The USPs
The film that is set in Visakhapatnam is a story about a youngster who grows up in the city, his perception about the world and the journey through the tidal waves of life. With majority of the film shot in Visakhapatnam, the final indoor scenes are being shot in Hyderabad currently before it goes into the post-production next month. Slated for an October release, the film is Palanki’s dream venture – a passion that he had nurtured from his badminton days. When the first look of Ala was released through a poster in November last year, Saina Nehwal took to Twitter to congratulate her badminton buddy’s debut film venture. Since then, the uniquely designed poster has been creating a lot of buzz. The film’s USP, however, says Palanki is its screenplay that will be something to watch out for.
“Ala is a simple story in which the ocean plays a central character. One of the main USPs of the film is the screenplay format. It is something that has never been tried before in the film industry,” says the filmmaker, without divulging much. The film has a team of newcomers with Bhargav Kommera playing the lead against debutant actress Shilpika, who is also a trained classical dancer and Malavika Satheesan. While the main leads are from Hyderabad, the rest of the film crew are all from Visakhapatnam. Incidentally, the film has used 300 extra artistes in few scenes to create the feel of natural ambience in college and beach shots.
Music, the highlight
Ala’s music is set to be released in September, which the filmmaker says will be the other USP of the film. Composed by Hyderabad-based debutant music director Srinivasa Sarma Rani, who recently collaborated with Shankar Mahadevan for the young composer’s his first independent album Shiv Chalisa, the music is said to be the soul of the film. “The songs of Ala are sung by Vijay Yesudas, Unni Krishnan, Karthik, Chinmayi and Yazin Nizar and will are looking forward to the music release,” says Palanki.
Shuttler to filmmaker
Palanki played badminton for 14 years and trained with players like Saina and P Kashyap. “Badminton would take away 12 hours of my time every day. In my heart, I always wanted to become a filmmaker. It took me a while to take that leap of faith and finally in 2006 when I bid adieu to the game,” says the filmmaker. He first started with a film camera rental business with two Red Epic Helium cameras and accessories which cost ₹30 lakh each.
With the film industry largely running on credit system, the business had to be shut down due to financial difficulties. After this, Palanki started his own Ad agency and worked on national ad campaigns for a major pharma brand apart from some local ads for Hyderabad-based firms. Alongside, he also edited short films and videos. “My idea behind getting into ad films and working on other editing works was to understand where one tends to go wrong in various phases of filmmaking. That experience helped me a lot with Ala ,” he says.
Ala poster has already garnered quite a lot of shares and likes on Facebook, having reached over 5.5 lakh people till now. The team, now, is eagerly waiting for its release as the film enters the post-production phase.
