Lights, camera! Cinema in state set for a lot of action

Living under the shadow of Andhra Pradesh’s big-ticket blockbusters, for decades on end, Telangana is now slowly but surely coming into its own. Driving this change in the state’s filmography is the Department of Language and Culture that’s drawn up an exhaustive year-long schedule to not just promote movies made by artistes from the new state, but also enrich the quality of future productions through education.

Recently, the department screened a series of acclaimed filmmaker Mirnal Sen’s work at Ravindra Bharati. On the cards next is a host of other movies, from across the world. “Apart from providing filmmakers a platform to showcase their movies, it is also important to show them great work so that they can learn from them and imbibe the finer nuances in their own productions,” said Mamidi Harikrishna, head of the department. He added, “My intention is to give Telangana’s cinema a new identity so that they can stand out and not be lost behind movies from AP.”


Mapping cinema’s journey through the 70s and the 80s, veterans said that barring a few films– such as Maa Bhoomi and Fidaa – Telangana’s works never drew much traction even as Tollywood was gaining its identity. “In fact, even making Maa Bhoomi (it depicted the feudalistic society of the region) was a challenge. A friend from AP helped us produce it. There was a period of political turmoil and our film was never screened in the villages. It took a long time for it to reach the masses,” said the film’s writer and producer, B Narsing Rao. The film was directed by Gautam Ghose.

Actor and documentary filmmaker, Sai Chand, has his own insight. “There was not much coming from Telangana in that period. The film industry hardly took Telangana seriously. They never recognised the beauty and potential of the culture and dialect. They would ridicule it. Everybody was looking at films commercially without concerning themselves with the art. That’s the case even today. Sporadically you spot movies from here now; but there’s no consistency,” he said.

This is what Mamidi Harikrishna intends to change. Through the short film competition, for instance, he wants to encourage local talent to take centrestage. “As of now the focus is on low budget cinema. But gradually, with time, I am certain that producers with start investing more money and support good cinema,” he said.

While doing so, producer, Allani Sreedhar feels that Telangana cinema must find its voice. “People still do not know how to define Telangana’s film culture and that’s an issue. There is still a lack of encouragement from the industry. Earlier it was one region one cinema, but now to create a new identity, the focus has to shift from the struggle to the unexplored sector of the state,” he said.