Driven by passion

doweshowbellyad=0; Sekhar Surya (TOI Photo)One look at Sekhar Surya’s back ground will reveal the guy means business. Hailing from a small village near Palakollu in West Godavari district, he went on to study engineering in Bangalore.
A passion for films brought Sekhar Surya to Hyderabad. Having worked as an assistant director with RGV’s production house for about three years he’s turned into a full-fledged director with the recently released FM-Fun Aur Masti.Hyderabad Times caught up with the young director who is keen on making it big in Tollywood. Here are excerpts from the interview.
Passion for cinema
I come from a modest agricultural family. My parents did all they could to give me a good education and wanted me to become a engineer. But cinema fascinated me from my childhood.
There was nothing I enjoyed doing more than watching movies. Having finished my engineering I decided to take a shot at filmmaking and moved to Hyderabad. Having worked for RGV for a while I joined hands with RK. I had worked as an asistant director for Angrez and Hyderabad Nawabs. Thanks to RK I finally got my chance with FM- Fun aur Masti.
Great reponse
FM was made on a shoe-string budget of 1.5 crore and we shot the movie in 40 days. But it took us over a year to get the movie to the theatres. The idea was to come up with a clean entertainer which can be enjoyed by all. It was a big relief to see the movie open to a great response from the audience.
Destination Tollywood
Tollywood is easily the most vibrant film industry in the country. It is a great place for newcomers especially. Over the years it has accquired a unique character of its own. But the biggest challenge for upcoming directors like me is to take Tollywood to the world by making cinema that reaches out to a global audience.