'Gatham', a psychological thriller, made by U.S-based students and IT professionals

A group of techies hope to get an India release for their movie that has been shot at Lake Tahoe in California

Kiran Reddy

A group of U.S-based students and IT professionals — all in their late 20s have made a film titled Gatham and its director Kiran Reddy informs us that they are looking for distributors here. Guntur-born Kiran completed his BTech in Hyderabad and moved to the U.S. where he met like-minded people with whom he formed a team to pursue the passion for films. Completely self taught, the friends made a few short films.

A couple of Kiran Reddy’s short films A Winter To Remember and Where is Ayush ? won awards. A short film that he submitted in 2015 fetched him the second best award. He adds, “Directors Harish Shankar and Merlapaka Gandhi who were in the U.S. saw the film and said the content had scope and we could develop it into a full length film and that’s how Gatham took shape. It’s a psychological thriller. A person who forgot his past wakes up from coma and struggles to know about himself. His girlfriend is the only one who has information about him. He wants to meet his parents and they set out on a journey. The car breaks down and this is when a third person offers help. What happens there after is a spine chilling journey, with twists and turns,” says Kiran.

Team behind ‘Gatham’

In August 2018, the ground work for

Gatham started and by December they were done with their pre-production that included finalising the cast, crew and locations. The shoot began during Christmas break as they needed a snow backdrop. Lake Tahoe in California was the centre of action and accurate weather predictions helped them plan their shooting schedules well, says Kiran.

This six-member team want to release it in India and the U.S. They outsourced sound design from Chile. Sri Charan Pakala who scored music for Adivi Sesh’s films like Evaru and Goodachari came on board. Manojh Reddy, DoP of Aswathama and Masthies , a web series by Krish, worked with them. Rakesh who acted in 40 short films in India and Pujita, a student from India star in the film. Pujita happens to be the great-granddaughter of director KV Reddy ( Mayabazar ).