Most filmmakers believe that a film has its own particular destiny. If so, Thithi, woven around a patriarch’s death, has an especially unique one. It came seemingly out of nowhere and had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival last year where it won two awards. Then followed wins at festivals in Mumbai, Marrakech and Palm Springs. In March, the film picked up the National Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada, and last week it hit the screens nationally. Thithi’s 26-year-old director Raam Reddy tells Kalpana Nair about its incredible journey and how he and the other two ‘musketeers’, co-writer Eregowda and cinematographer and associate producer Doron Tempert, made it up as they went along.
How did you decide to situate Thithi in the village of Nodekoppalu in Mandya, Karnataka and to work with non-professional actors who were actually from there?
It’s because of the third musketeer, Eregowda. He is my friend of 15 years and it’s his village. As a filmmaker, I like working with non-professionals. I was used to it and it was partially borne out of practicality when I had a camera and I didn’t have any actors or a budget. So I started getting my friends to act. It became a part of my style. I find India cinematic in itself and there wasn’t enough of India on screen that was the way it is. India deserves authenticity on screen. More of that is happening now, but at that point I hadn’t seen enough of it.
How did you get these incredible performances out of a cast that had never acted before?
There are two ways to approach non-professional film acting; one is where you don’t tell your cast anything and direct each shot so that you are creating a work of art that only you know. That’s a style that this filmmaker I really like, Carlos Reygadas, follows. But I thought with Thithi, it has to be exactly the opposite. The cast needed to know everything and to understand everything to own and to deliver a performance from ‘their’ within rather than from ‘my’ within. Otherwise you’ll never get performances that are this organic. Also, we worked around their commitments and shot only when they had time and were comfortable. If someone had to feed his goats, they went to feed their goats and we’d stop shooting.
Being an independent filmmaker comes with its own set of challenges. What do you think is the most important trait for an independent filmmaker to have?
Perfectionism, patience and uncompromising thoroughness. While studying economics, I learnt the idea of maximization. It doesn’t lead to the utmost happiness day to day because there is a little bit of pressure on yourself. But if you have an opportunity, you have to maximize it. You can’t always be uncompromising on set, because there is a lot of money involved. But you don’t have to compromise on pre-production and post-production ever. Fifty per cent of your quality comes from that. For example we couldn’t get a good trailer editor, so I taught myself trailer editing because it’s a completely different skill and took a month and half to cut the trailer. Me, Eregowda and Doran are very stubborn that way. If we can’t find professionals, then we’ll learn it and we will do it ourselves. There were days on set where we wore every hat and if we screwed up the first day, we went back and did it all over again the next day.
What’s the most satisfying part of everything that has happened with Thithi in the last year?
When we set out to make the film, I just wanted it to premiere at one of the top film festivals. I couldn’t think beyond that. I was thinking, “Let’s hope it has a fest run and if it has a fest run then let’s try and get some sort of a limited release.” What I am most proud of is that we were able to tick off every box. We did the festival rounds successfully and we were able to do a local release in the cities of Karnataka and from there we have spread to single screens and finally to a national release. Internationally, a global distribution deal is also in the works. It’s something we were hoping for, but never really expected.
Do you think the recent success of Nagraj Manjule’s Sairaat, a Marathi film, has altered the landscape for films like Thithi?
Of course. The repercussions of Sairaat within the industry are huge. The bravery with which a director can approach a script and the way distributors look at accepting a script have all been impacted. We haven’t yet had a chance to see it but I am finally going for it tonight!
What is your take on the Udta Punjab-censor board fight?
India has so many stories that need to be told. And not just for social change but because we are such a multi-faceted, diverse country. Some people say art is a mirror to society. That is true but it is a personal expression of inner creativity first. Now if you have a filter within your own creative impulse, you’ll never have open, honest work of international quality, and you’ll then be driven by economics. The idealism of creation will be gone.