Very few know that Raam Reddy had made Ika (Feather) a 15-minute short Telugu film before Thithi . According to Raam, in many ways, Ika was the seed and template of the kind of film he wanted in Thithi .
Ika tells the story of Rajesh, a boy living in a slum in Bengaluru, who wants to make a film. He doesn’t have a camera and builds one using a cardboard box and a magnifying glass and sticks an old VHS tape to its side. He then sets out with his friend, Prashanth, in search of an idea for his film. He convinces Prashanth that, whatever goes in his mind will make in to that tape. When they find that one of their friend’s chickens has been chased away by a dog, they decide to make a detective movie about the search for that lost chicken.
This short film has Rajesh Y., Prashant D., Suvarna K., Vinod R., G.R. Muniyamma, Srinivasulu T. and Reddappa in the cast. Ere Gowda and Clay Kelton helped Raam as the casting director and production manager. Besides writing the script, Raam himself handled the camera, designed the sound, and edited this film, which bagged three awards at the Toto Festival-Bengaluru (2013), London Asian Film Festival (2014), and won Best Edition Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival (2014). The film was screened at 13 various International Film Festivals across the globe.
Describing his experiences in the making of Ika , Raam says: “It was an exercise in directing non-professional actors and reaffirmed the importance in having a deep and personal relationship with the entire cast to be able to achieve authentic and nuanced performances. The lead actors in Ika are not only talented, but were also my friends. This was also the first time I worked closely with Ere Gowda, the writer of Thithi . Interestingly, Ika was a zero budget film and made with a crew of two people; myself and Ere Gowda. In a similar way to Thithi, Ika was inspired by non-professional actors, who acted in it and the place where it was shot. We shot the film in M.R. Palya slum community, off Nandi Durga Road in Benglauru.”
Lessons learnt? “Making Ika taught me a lot of about working in an intimate setting and the importance of personal relationships in the making of a meaningful movie from the heart. I knew the four main actors in Ika before we decided to make a film together. I used to teach them Tables as part of a social work programme in my school. The children were also going to a creative school Drishya, founded by my mother Anitha Reddy. They were bright and talented, both artistically and intellectually. Since I wrote, directed, edited and created sound design for the film, I learnt a lot about various aspects of film making and how I like to treat each of these different aspects of film making stylistically. Furthermore, the film has a touch of magic realism, which I consider is the key to my inner creative impulse and voice as an artist. The filmmaking process helped in building the all important artistic relationship between me and Ere Gowda, which then eventually lead to the collaboration that made Thithi a reality.
Raam says that making of Ika helped in understanding the fact that a film of international quality can be made by a minute crew with no budget.
“Film making does not need fancy equipment, big crews or lot of money. What it needs is a commitment to learning the craft and passion for execution without compromise. The rest is just individual creativity.”
