28 September 2022
Hyderabad
In an exclusive conversation with idlebrain.com, debutant director Lakshman K Krishna spoke about growing up in a filmy environment, his short film days, his multiple attempts to get his first feature made, Swathimuthyam, Mani Ratnam and Trivikram’s influence on him and much more…
Filmmaker Lakshman K Krishna is chuffed to bits with the response the trailer of his maiden directorial, Swathimuthyam has elicited. “It’s been superb so far. I’m still flooded with calls. Many people said that it was destined for success. Also, they felt that it looks like a clean family entertainer,” the director tells us.
Lakshman comes from Pithapuram, East Godavari. Growing up, the conversation at home revolved around cinema, especially that of megastar Chiranjeevi’s. Naturally, he gravitated towards cinema at a young age. As a student, he used to write plays on days like August 15 and November 14, and they were well appreciated. “Trivikram garu is also one of the reasons why I’m in the industry. When I was studying VIII standard, I watched Athadu and it blew me away. The film and his name registered in my mind. I watched it four-five times and since then I wanted to become a director or pen a script,” he avers.
While pursuing engineering, he had a tryst with short films, taking the help of a wedding videographer. Later, he formed a group with film enthusiasts from his place, Kakinada and collaborated for short films. “I later came to Hyderabad to join as an assistant director. A guy who I know was already assisting a leading director at that time, so I was waiting for my turn. But then, luck eluded me. I did a short film, The Last Wish, on a budget of Rs 2,600 to bag an assistant director chance. Impressed with it, I was offered to do Krishnamurthi Garintlo. It was made on a budget of Rs 1, 30,000. It was an instant hit on YouTube, clocking one million views in four days. Many independent producers approached me later, expressing their interest to produce a film with me if I had a good story.
“The success helped me realize that I had talent and that I can survive here. The short also helped me walk away with the SIIMA award for Best Short Film in 2017. SIIMA members later held discussions with me over a feature project after I impressed them with a love story. But then the project failed to take off. I had a friend who was in the construction sector. He liked the story of the romantic drama and said he would produce it. We tried our best to take it off the ground but due to one or the other reason, it hit a wall,” he sighs.
“I approached other producers as well,” he goes on, “many of them liked it but guess due to my inexperience, they didn’t pool in resources. My friend from the construction sector came back and he was determined to produce it again. However, we encountered an issue again. Later, we felt the need to do a demo film before we attempted the feature. So I wrote a similar story keeping it under one hour 15 minutes. I picked Chaitanya Sagiraju (HIT: The first case fame) as a lead and made it on a budget of Rs 14 lakhs. Sadhaa Nee Premalo was the title. It came out well, giving us the confidence that we can achieve the vision I had for the love story.”
Lakshman wanted to release it on OTT platforms but the imposition of lockdown put paid to his hopes. At the same time, the love story he dreamt of directing needed monsoon backdrop but as lockdown restrictions got extended, he understood that he couldn’t shoot that year. “I was stressed out. Personally, it was a bad phase because the project was not taking off despite my best efforts. I didn’t know what to do. To come out of it, I felt the need to write a situational comedy. I cracked a basic line— what if an innocent lad faces a strange conflict at an important juncture of his life and how people around him react to it—and developed it with my cousin Raghava Reddy by incorporating the situations we saw during our childhood. We enjoyed the writing process and we completed the script in four months. We wanted to do it with newcomers,” he reveals.
It was through a common friend, he got the contact of Ganesh Bellamkonda. He initially thought Ganesh wouldn’t do the script, so he narrated a town backdrop story with political undertones. While the actor loved it, he didn’t evince interest to headline it. “Ganesh was looking for a rom-com or a simple family entertainer. I narrated Swathimuthyam for 30 minutes and he got excited immediately. I had the trailer of Sada Nee Premalo with me at that time, and I showed it to him. He liked the making and felt that I can handle Swathimuthyam. His father Suresh heard the story the next day and he too endorsed it. So did Sreenivas. It was through the Bellamkonda family the script landed at Sithara Entertainments,” the director informs.
Sithara’s in-house director and script doctor Trivikram too read the script and gave his stamp of approval. “When I met Trivikram garu one day, he said, ‘You wrote it well. It didn’t even need corrections. It looked fresh and you can go to sets happily’,” the director exults.
The next step was to decide on a leading lady. Lakshman liked Varsha Bollamma’s turn in Tamil super hit ‘96 and he initially thought of her for the love story he had written. In Swathimuthyam, the female lead is a small town school teacher, who is a little naughty. “For this part as well, her name crossed my mind. Turns out, she was picked in the end. While different names were discussed when the casting began, I proposed her name. Middle Class Melodies had just dropped on Amazon Prime Video by then and was winning raves. The production house too felt that she was the right choice for the small town girl role,” he explains, adding that before they went to floors, he conducted workshops with Ganesh at the latter’s home. “He would get to know what he needs to do passionately. In fact, he believed in the film’s success more than me.”
Swathimuthyam tells the tale of Balamuralikrishna (played by Ganesh) who is a junior engineer at a power station. “His father wants him to settle down in life and starts looking for marriage alliances. Around this time, he meets a teacher Bhagyalakshmi (Varsha) and falls head over heels in love with her. Their families have a past but they put their differences aside and fix the marriage. In the process, he faces a strange conflict, which I can’t reveal. How he overcomes it forms the crux of the story,” the director shares.
Looking back at the experience of shooting the film, which was wrapped in 60 days with filming taking place in Pithapuram, Kakinada and Hyderabad, every day was memorable for Lakshman. On the first day though, he was a bundle of nerves. “I planned a sequence with Ganesh and Vennela Kishore garu. I said action followed by a cut. I didn’t okay the shot but everyone rushed towards me to congratulate me. I was like, ‘did I err or what?’ I told Kishore garu that that shot was not OK’d yet and he was like, ‘We will do it. We came to congratulate you first’. While I couldn’t take the unit’s thanks, I got the right take immediately next. It was a strange experience,” he smiles, recalling the experience fondly.
He is a big fan of Mani Ratnam, having watched the auteur’s romantic-thriller, Dil Se countless times during his intermediate. “It influenced me a lot,’ declares the filmmaker, whose other inspirations include Yash Chopra and Vamsy. He is glad that his film is opening five days after Mani Ratnam’s passion project, Ponniyin Selvan. “The other day I saw an ad in a paper which had Swathimuthyam next to Ponniyin Selvan. I’m framing it on my wall,” he states with a sense of pride. Next up though, he is planning a comedy-thriller and eyeing Vijay Sethupathi to spearhead it. “It’s a tailor-made story for him.”
-NAGARAJ GOUD
