Rajendra Vinod hails from Hindupur, in Andhra. “I come from a very small town, but my dreams are big,” he says. His desire is to narrate short stories.
This young man, in his mid 20s, has today become a competent short filmmaker. He uses his resources – time, money and talent, to make films using two to 10 minutes to tell a story. But, where does he screen them? “I send them to various short film festivals and after that they can be viewed on YouTube,” he says.
Vinod describes himself as “very reserved. My socialising skills were also bad. I was not always like this. I was very close to my sister, who was married off at the age of 13. I was 11 then. I became lonely and to get away from the pain of her absence, I put myself in a world of fantasy and the characters would almost come alive. It is those childhood imaginations that have helped me make these films,” recalls the filmmaker. Soon, he and his friends got together to start Aarvi Films, a production house, which was awarded the Best Emerging Production House by Bangalore Short Films Festival 2014.
Some of his films include As Far As, Fear, Over Reaction, Exam all of which do not have dialogues. Till date he has spent “one lakh for nine short films. Yes, my films are all low budgeted. I like sending them to festivals because I get to meet and see the works of other filmmakers there.”
He is currently studying M.Sc. in multimedia in Bangalore and has been making films for a year. Vinod has won seven international awards and one regional award for his films. Now he dreams of making his debut in Hollywood or Bollywood.
“My aim is to make a film from any corner of this planet,” he says. Will he sustain in Bollywood, where even three hours is not enough to tell a story?
Vinod insists that though a lot can be communicated in a couple of minutes, his dream is to get into making full-fledged films that “make a difference to the audience’s thinking. I like to make films like Gandhi, The Ship Of Theseus and Life of Pi . They are offbeat and entertaining and yet have a message. I do not want to change anything in the film world, but I will tread the path that I am comfortable with it. Even in a world where sex and porn sells, there will always be a set of good films,” he says.
His films can be viewed on: www.facebook.com/ aarvifilms
