Direction has been Revanth Korukonda’s passion. His dream had come true on the 22nd October, he had not only directed the film Natyam, but had written the story, dialogues and even handled the camera. Talking to Y.Sunita Chowdhary of Klapboardpost.com, Revanth Korukonda states that he had always wanted to make one great film, narrate stories that he had written in a visual format. Ask him about his academics and how he came into the film industry he tells, “I am from Vizag, did engineering in Geetham college and went to the US to do my Masters. I always wanted to direct a film, unfortunately there were very few film schools down South and so I sought admission in engineering. In Andhra, apart from engineering and medicine, niche subjects like cinema and media studies weren’t available. My parents were very cooperative, friendly and encouraged me to take up a subject of my choice. I researched film schools in Pune and Chennai but when I went to the US for engineering, I also did a film course.”
Revanth has great respect for Indian cinema and believes that we have the potential to be the world’s greatest film industry where best and beautiful stories are written and created. He quips, “I feel it is very important to do different films. Are our Indian films being watched worldwide? My dream is to see Telugu cinema in a global perspective like we watch world cinema. We do have that standard, films like Patala Bhairavi, Bhairava Dveepam are all classics. We have better characters and designers than those who worked for Avengers. Our Telugu cinema has adapted a different route. What if we take our old stories and execute them with Hollywood standards? We always never fell short of good subjects right from the nineteen forties.”
About his journey, Revanth adds, “I took a lot of courses, observed, did a lot of self learning from Youtube. I made a few videos in the USA and when I was back here I worked with new directors in different capacities. There was observation and also I would take up a task in every department. I also began doing a short film after a year and a half of coming here. I also became an ad film maker and used the revenue earned to invest in making a film of my choice. I made a demo video, then made a short film. I met Sandhya Raju and asked if she would work in my film that is supposed to run around dance. She worked in my film. I always wanted to make a movie with dance as the central point. I am western dancer, and don’t have a classical dance background. I always thought that incase I venture out to a Telugu film, this subject would be the first one to go on floors.”
Natyam, he explains, is telling a story beautifully. “There are different kinds of dance forms and we Indians tell a story using dance as a medium to influence people. We narrate a story with expressions, emotions, situations. There is no classical dance without abhinayam. We have different kinds of dance forms, Hip Hop, Salsa etc. Cinema is technology and the idea of a dance is to tell a story and influence people. The same idea existed 2000 years back, it just transferred from natyam to cinema. I studied a book on Natya Shastra and I concur with the thought that Lord Brahma created dance to narrate a story. A man can learn the good and bad through the story. For Natyam, I created a village and a Guru from that village wants to tell a tale. A dance form has the strength to tell a story and has power to influence people, remove blind faith and superstitions. There is also a superstitious belief in the village. While the guru believes a story can be told through dance, he forbids her from telling a tale of a village and its temple. The disciple however goes ahead and accomplishes it.”
Ask Revanth if he believes people will flock theatres to watch a subject such as this which is devoid of commercial ingredients? He says, “The movie flavour has cinematic elements and it has all emotions and has complete drama. The soul point is pure but the presentation is all cinematic. It is an intense drama..the entire presentation is something you’ll connect to. The world commercial has a different definition these days and I can say for sure it is not completely art and boring. Sandhya Raju is the producer and actor. The high point is the story, engaging drama. Second, is visuals. I enjoy the process of filmmaking and the translation of ideas from one person to the next which in this case has been very beautiful. I have written a few scripts and some liked it. The next depends on how this will fare at the box office.”
