Small budget… and big awards

This engineering dropout from Bengaluru made a film that won the Best Action film at Cannes World Film Festival. And that was not all...

Transcript

00:00I'm a dead man if I go behind them.

00:16I wanted to be in the movies, you know, be in front of the camera, be the hero who punches

00:20everybody across and goes up to the end.

00:27My dad has this habit of collecting a lot of DVDs.

00:29So we have like almost close to like around 10 to 15,000 DVDs at home in all languages

00:35almost.

00:36So that's where my interest in movies began.

00:38During the first year of engineering, that's when I realized, you know, this is not working

00:41out for me.

00:42I have to take up something that, you know, where my passion lies.

00:54I sort of wrote the script backwards, like wherever I could shoot nicely, showcase certain

00:59good visuals, I added that in the script and, you know, sort of made the story around it

01:03as well.

01:04We're not professional actors or anything.

01:12I had to, whoever was free, I asked them, if you're free today, please come and act.

01:17The utilization of the budget was entirely either few on the location, on the rentals

01:20of the equipment that we are using.

01:24And the other had to be the editing softwares that, you know, the plugins that whatever

01:28that required for me to edit the movie.

01:32So all of the money went into that.

01:35My first film festival that I won was in Kolkata.

01:40It's called Golden Lion International Film Festival, where we won the Best Thriller Film

01:43and Best Trailer.

01:44I came across Cannes World Film Festival, and then we won Best Action Film.

01:50I had submitted to other film festivals as well.

01:52For example, in Rome International Movie Awards, Rameshwaram International Film Festival.

01:57I ended up getting Best Actor award in that.

02:03Our film is right next to movies like Rocket Tree, Lutera and Omkara, which you don't see

02:08because the entire lineup, there's only 10 or 12 films on critically acclaimed section

02:12on Jio Cinema.

02:13All of them are obviously big proper budget and then proper star cast and everything.

02:17Ours is the only film that has the least budget, no star cast, nothing in it, you know, it's

02:22there.

02:23So that is sort of like another achievement.

02:33I do not like to go out to many functions or this and that, because everybody thinks,

02:37okay, this guy left engineering is doing something, we don't know what it is.

02:41And they meet, they see this and they ask what is next?

02:43I don't have a proper answer for it, because I'm still trying to get this out in a hope

02:47that it reaches the people, reaches the industry and gives me the platform to stand on my own

02:52two feet.