We have seen youngsters from different walks of life giving up their career to pursue their passion for making movies; Mohammed Yakub Ali is no exception. The young man from a village Jayyaram in Warangal will be making his debut as a director soon. In fact, his film is wrapped up and is ready for release. Ali talks of his dream and his family, “Me and my brother grew up wanting to be dentists. I also liked films and felt that once I get a degree I can move towards films. After graduating in dentistry, I came to Hyderabad and joined the Ramanaidu Film School. My father too is a doctor and he obviously wasn’t pleased when I gave up medicine. My brother continued with his post graduation and I seriously took up film studies for two years. While I was doing BDS I cultivated a liking for editing,..i.e editing videos. Once I felt I was equipped with the knowledge of making a film I decided to make a full fledged movie.”
Yakub had his share of difficulties, he took his bound script and went to some people who handle Youtube channels; They wanted all the rights and the resources but what they were willing to give wouldn’t be sufficient to make a movie. He adds, “So I approached my friends in the USA and they funded me. When I came to mixing and grading, I went bankrupt. So I just started putting up posters and teasers of my unfinished film on social media hoping someone would notice it. It worked, some celebrities tweeted and retweeted my links and I could sell the audio rights. The trailer was remaining, I worked on it for two months and got a good feedback before it was finally launched. That gave me some confidence. The producers summoned me and I chose producer Dil Raju as he was appropriate in all ways to get a theatrical release. There has been overwhelming response for overseas rights too.”
The director is not bogged down by economics any more, he doesn’t speak about money and collections. He says, “My only goal is the film should be out and maximum people should watch it. I want them to know about the team, technicians and artistes. The process took three years and when it was started it was Yila Nee Jataga . But after the film was made director Harish Shankar said it was good but the title needs a change and on Dil Raju’s insistence I changed it to Yellipomake . The cast comprises ten to 15 newcomers. The story is not outdated, I am confident about the plot. Prashant Vihari from A. R. Rahman School gave us the music and we had three months of rehearsals with the actors and Vishwak and Nitya Sree who play the lead did a good job,” he concludes.
