Rahul Sankrityan: I learnt from my mistakes

Vijay Deverakonda will be the USP of ‘Taxiwala’, admits Rahul Sankrityan

Rahul Sankrityan on the sets of ‘Taxiwala’

Director Rahul Sankrityan’s first feature film was The End in 2014, it had debutants as its artistes, mostly his office colleagues at Infosys. The film fetched appreciation but he is yet to sell the online rights. The computer science graduate would make short films even while he worked as a systems engineer for a company. During the nights he made three short films and one fetched him a MAA TV Award. What drove Rahul to turn to feature films? “I was excited about making a film, building characters scene by scene and making people believe in the alternate reality. I learnt from my mistakes as I made these short films. I’m from Anantapur and I had limited knowledge of film school, studios and the film industry. . All I knew was if I make a short film, I can show it to my friends, but during my final year of B Tech, I decided that filmmaking would be my career.”

He quit his job just before he made The End, a move thta mde his parents apprehensive. Now, post The End , Rahul got calls from Sukumar and some more directors who urged him not to give up making films.

What was the motive behind

Taxiwala ? “I have always believed that a good concept can also be a commercial film. I never had to give a second narration to any producer. The genre is sci-fi, super natural thriller and comedy. The audience will understand the depth of the film when the teaser releases. It begins with a cab driver (played by Vijay Deverakonda) but what the cab driver goes through and the challenges he faces forms most of the story,” he reveals.

Rahul Sankrityan says the audience will enjoy Vijay Deverakonda’s new dimension

Taxiwala . This will be his first release after Arjun Reddy . How versatile is his character going to be? He draws the contrast in personality. “It begins with a cab driver but doesn’t end there. Here the cab driver is a lay man whereas he was an intellectual doctor in his previous film. Here the people he moves around with, his clothes, how he handles his IQ is very interesting. There are two heroines, Priyanka Jawalkar and Malvika Nair.”

The director observes that the success of concept films did reinforce faith amongst young film makers to think and try out of the box subjects. He and many youngsters have a new definition for commercial cinema, they don’t treat commercial cinema as regular mass cinema.

Rahul, without being an assistant director — which is the norm — had made a film. What was his learning experience? Rahul says he’s been meticulously taking notes after his daily work and evaluates his own work.

Ask him the USP of Taxiwala , he says it is Vijay Deverakonda, with new energy; story wise there is an interesting space; the audience needs to wait and watch.