“We tried to create a balance between realism and the creation of a particular cinematic world,” said director Raam Reddy about his experience of working on Thithi , which won the best film award in the Asian Films category at the recently concluded Bengaluru International Film Festival.
He was speaking to The Hindu ’s readers in a live web chat on Saturday. “Our initial intention was to create a warm, humorous film that was full of life,” he said.
To a question, Mr. Reddy replied that the decision to work with villagers who were not professional actors was taken to make the film more authentic. “Once you are able to get them to relax in front of the camera and to understand their roles, they can create magically honest performances,” he said.
On his inspiration for Thithi , he said, “My starting point for Thithi was with the location: I decided that I wanted to make a film in a particular place. I then explored the place with my writer Ere Gowda, and the story happened organically out of that exploration.”
Thithi has secured distribution rights in India and will be in cinemas this summer.
He advised aspiring filmmakers to make original short films and explore the medium of cinema thoroughly. He urged them to watch famous international films and deconstruct them carefully. “From personal experience, I learnt a lot more from watching well-regarded films from all over the world than from film school,” Mr. Reddy said.
On genre definitions in films, he said, “I am quite keen on attempting to break genre definitions in films. What I think is more important is the initial intention. My team and I decided to stay true to our creative impulses and did the best we could. Thithi came out of this simplicity.”
