Men behind the movement

K.V. R. Mahendra’s short film ‘Nisheedhi’ tells the story of the people who gave up their lives for the cause of Telangana

A still from the movie 'Nisheedhu'

During the Telangana state formation day celebrations on June 2, filmmaker K.V.R. Mahendra and his friend went around the city to experience and share the joy of people in Hyderabad. Quite strangely, Mahendra felt a twinge of sadness when he saw the cheerful faces. “My thoughts were centred around the 1500 people who gave up their lives for the cause of Telangana. It is sad that those people aren’t alive to see their dream come true,” explains Mahendra.

With celluloid as his canvas, he decided to record the struggle of all those who lost their lives for the Telangana struggle; result, the short film Nisheedhi – The Dark was born. “I wanted to highlight the struggle and tell their story. In the last decade, Telangana struggle is the only successful movement across the globe,” he states. Mahendra wanted to make Nisheedhi into a full length feature film but the lack of resources forced him to turn it into a short film. “In fact, I took Rs.2 lakhs from my wife. And, Kishore Varma, who plays the lead role in the movie did not take any remuneration,” he says with a smile. While music is by Jeevan Thomas, cinematography is by Uday Gurrela and editing by Krishna Manda of Annapurna Studios.

Mahendra adds that the onus has been to make the short film on par with international standards. Made on a shoestring budget of Rs. 2 lakhs,

Nisheedhi has few dialogues and the highlight is the light and shadow effect. The effort has yielded results as the 14-minute-long film has been sent to 40 film festivals till now and has already won three awards. “It has won the Best Director award at Indore International Festival and Best cinematographer award at the Rising International Film Festival in Pune. At the 21st Kolkata International Film Festival, it was among 25 films that were selected for screening out of 2500 films from 60 countries; I consider it as an award in itself,” he states. Results of a few film festivals are awaited and hence Mahendra has not uploaded the short film on the YouTube channel.

He mentions about a special appreciation from writer/director Vijayendra Prasad. “

Nisheedhi was screened during the Bathukamma festival organised by the Telangana state government Nisheedhi . Later, when Vijayendra Prasad was felicitated, he presented me the shawl and memento given to him. I consider it as my biggest accomplishment,” he smiles.

Mahendra has been in the business of filmmaking for 10 years now. Besides working as a co-director, he was the director Satyam Vaipu Margam. He says he wanted to depict the positive angle of the Telangana movement. “I am from Warangal but I have not made the movie because I hail from Telangana. I was a witness to the movement and want to record it,” he states.