Telangana filmmmaker’s short film bags top honours at KIFF 2019

Hyderabadi filmmaker Shravan Katikaneni made the state proud when he won the Golden Royal Bengal Tiger Award for the Best Indian Short Film at the recently concluded Kolkata International Film Festival 2019 (KIFF). Titled Summer Rhapsody, the 20-minute short film captures Telangana’s rural lifestyle and Shravan, who has written and directed the film, is overjoyed to say the least.“There were 19 more short films from all across the country, nominated for this category and Telangana bagged the first prize. It feels amazing,” shares Shravan, who received a sum of 5 lakh rupees, which was awarded to him by the chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee.

Shot in Veluru, 50 kilometers south-east of Hyderabad, the short film revolves around an eight-year-old boy Aili, played by Poorna Bodha Molugu, son of theatre actor Jabardasth Laxmi Kiran, who has to help his mother, played by Vaidehi Lanka, in the fields by taking care of his newborn sister. “Since my early childhood visits to my village in Nalgonda district, among many vivid memories, one that still stays with me is the sight of kids babysitting newborns while their mothers worked in the fields nearby. I wanted to incorporate that into this film,” says the Marredpally resident, adding, “Even though I was born and raised in the city, I spent many summer vacations in the village. And I thought that this intricate engagement of a child taking care of their sibling, amidst nature perhaps shapes their sensitivity, compassion and emotional intelligence. I wanted to capture that emotion through this short film.”

Shravan, who’s worked as an editor in films like Gamyam, Vedam and Anando Brahma, is all praise for his actors and says their performances helped the film bag the award. “Poorna is a very spontaneous actor who didn’t need much training or prompting on location. I gave him the story in two pages and he was perfect with his expressions and body language, same goes for Vaidehi. The baby in the film was Vaidehi’s five-month-old daughter, who did a pretty good job too,” says the filmmaker.

Incidentally, Summer Rhapsody is a predominantly silent film with Vivek Sagar’s music playing in the background. There are only two dialogues in the
entire short film, one of which is ‘Jai Telangana’, and the other is ‘India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters.’ “Film is a visual medium,
I prefer communicating the message visually rather than through dialogue,” says Shravan. Having won the award and 5 lakh as prize money, Shravan has a spring in his step and is keen to start filming again. “I plan to invest the prize money into my next film. I’m working on the script and will share details soon,” he says, signing off.