Yet another director, Dharma from the USA who has his roots in Vijayawada is making his debut soon with Rendu Rellu Naluge . Right from his childhood, Dharma was inclined towards art and over a period of time he evinced keen interest in drama and behind the camera. When he went to the US after his graduation, it was natural for him to get associated with filmmaking workshops.
He formed a team where they made experimental digital films by roping in local talent. Dharma says, “Right from the beginning I made and maintained contacts with people associated with cinema. Cinematographer Rasool came to the US to make Sangamam and, the producers of Padamati Sandhyaragam ; I also kept in touch with art field and all these helped me to pool resources for my film. We learnt script writing, handling the camera and did a few short films.
I wrote my own plays, scripts, learnt editing. As a team we delivered the product.”
Why did he take two long years to complete the film? “Though I got support from my family, I was working as an IT employee and doing a 9 to 5 job and would have meetings in the evening with core team members.
We would shoot only on weekends and we began in 2012. We took time to do patch work and edit work. Since we were shooting on weekends, we didn’t think it would be this big.
Two weeks into the shoot we met singer Usha and started expanding scope of the project. From a small story, it evolved over a period of nine months. SPB and Hemachandra too joined. And from a one hour-15-minute story, it became a 2 hour-12 minute family entertainer.
We could evolve it into an emotional drama and add five commercial songs,” says the director.
Dharma talks of his inspiration, “I am a big fan of Jandhyala. I grew up on a diet of his movies. This one is an ode to him. ‘Plan B’ was the original title but we changed since it was in English.
We have subtitles in Telugu. The film has been titled Rendu Rellu Naluge as all the characters are in the multiples of two. I am super excited to show it to the world and I am here to make films.”
