28 August 2015
Hyderabad

He is passionate about movies and believes that small films will also make it big one day. Idlebrain throws Focus Light on Rakesh Mahankali, producer of Pathashaala movie and Pharma businessman, who is confident to make beautiful movies with ideal concepts.

My passion towards movies
I was born in Hyderabad. My dad started a Pharma business in Hyderabad and they shifted to the city even before I was born. We spent our festivals and summer vacation in our village. I would play with my cousins and relatives the entire day. I studied in Good Samaritan high school. Movies have been in my family even before I was born. My mother would watch movies while she was pregnant. So, that’s how, the essence of movies entered my blood. As a family, we would always take time to watch movies. We lived in SR Nagar. That puts us closer to Satyam theater and Sheesh mahal. So, my parents would take us to movies as a weekend ritual and we watched pretty much every movie in my childhood. I used to get inspired while watching movies but had no idea what to do. I always knew, I wanted to do something.

After Intermediate, my father wanted me to do pharmacy as it is our family business. But, I really liked CBIT college and wanted to do engineering. So, I cleared Eamcet and joined engineering in CBIT. Though engineering days were little hectic, Sundays were my days! I never missed attendance but made sure I watched all the movies. I used to bunk college but was a decent student. After my engineering, I joined Nicmar in Construction Management. During my Nicmar days, I stayed in the hostel, as it would be a last chance for me in educational institutions. I had good set of friends and thoroughly enjoyed my college days. After Nicmar, I was asked to take up our family business. At that point; I have even refused campus placements as we had our business. After few days of being into it, I realized, it was not meant for me. Then I joined Mytas. But our family had undergone distress in business. So, I had to step in for them and help my father. During this time, my friends started shooting for Aa Naluguru movie. I used to attend the shooting and enjoy the glitterati.

Somewhat my story
I was very obese weighing some 130 kgs. I was approached by Prem Kumar Patra with a story of a fat boy falling in love with a beautiful girl. I met Saikiran Adivi and he narrated the story to me. I liked it as I could connect with it emotionally. We decided to do this film. They asked me if I would play the lead. I said, I would invest money but refuse to be a hero. I suggested Krishnudu’s name and we rolled the project. Before this, I have even started Pharma distribution separately in 2006. We are the first generation for oncology Pharma. It was slowly picking up and by 2009, I opted out of my father’s store and completely concentrated on my pharma distribution.

Coming back to Vinayakudu, I was the executive producer for the movie. I used to work for a construction business and earned some pocket money before I got into my business. I invested all that money in Vinayakudu movie. I haven’t taken a penny from my family and it was my hard earned money. I was 25 at that time and it was not affecting my livelihood either. Since it was my pocket money, I took the risk. I was never scared, as I was excited about the movie production. The whole team was young and I enjoyed attending the shooting and post-production. I have also learned how to solve crisis and problems. We never had distribution challenge for the movie as Dil Raju and Suresh Productions distributed the movie. Though I didn’t get the amount that I deserved, I got back my money that I invested.

Our Production house
During this time, I met Mahi V Raghav who was an Assistant Director for Vinayukudu. Both of us started a film company called Moon Water pictures. Our idea was to get the story concepts and produce films and also do In-film branding. But In film branding was tough, so we left it and stuck to producing films.

We made Village lo Vinayakudu. It wasn’t difficult as the whole team was there and I was friends with everyone. Suresh productions distributed it. We got break even and also good satellite rights.

After Village lo Vinayakudu, we started Kudirithe Cup Coffee. We got one more producer from USA and started the project. But the project got delayed and apparently the movie tanked. We lost money in that movie. We both thought of taking a break and I started focusing on my business.

Small movies in big game
Then in 2012, Mahi came up with another script of Pathashaala movie. I really liked it as we all can relate to the story. We roped in one more producer and started with a low budget. We met many people for distribution. We started the project by borrowing money from friends and investors. We used social networking; did auditions and finished the movie by 2014 with a budget of 1.7 crore. The movie was critically acclaimed but we didn’t get our money back. The satellite rights business also tanked. There was a lot of transformation since I came into the movie industry. The movies would run for at least 2 months before. Now after digitization , the life cycle of a movie is just 2 weeks. Unless and until it’s a great movie, audience wouldn’t visit theater. So, small films have very less visibility. Each time I worked on a movie, we were in transformation. We generated most of the revenue from Youtube and through Maa tv.

We are now working on a horror story script. Without distribution, we can’t do a film these days. It is not about having money. It is more to do with distribution and marketing. If big production houses make small films, then we will have visibility. If I want to produce films, we will not get any visibility, as nobody knows me. Also, I do not have that infrastructure. It is very tough for small films to survive these days. No matter how good the story is, the movie is always over shadowed by big budget movies with big stars. Also, these days, the producer doesn’t have any value. They run behind the stars but never concentrate on the concepts. It is a star centric industry now. This needs to be changed. Otherwise good cinemas and beautiful concepts will perish soon.

My family
I am married to Arpita. She is beautiful and very intelligent. She runs an online portal- www.yograd.com. She is my biggest support till date and also my inspiration. I told you, I was quite obese weighing 130 kgs when I met her. I worked hard and right now I am just 90kgs. I am still trying hard to reduce some extra kilos. But my wife inspired me to get back in shape and I owe it to her a lot. My weight loss is quite inspiring to many youngsters!

By
Swathi Sriram

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