26 July 2022
Hyderabad
idlebrain.com caught up with Sarath Mandava, the director of Ravi Teja-starrer Ramarao on Duty. He spoke about landing the project, conducting script reading sessions with Ravi Teja, his influences and the present turbulent times for cinema
Sarath Mandava worked as a screenwriter, cinematographer, executive producer and co-director before making his debut as a director with the 2016 Tamil flick Ko2, which was the remake of Telugu film Prathinidhi. A Telugu lad from Ongole, he is now looking forward to the release of his maiden Telugu directorial, Ramarao on Duty, with Ravi Teja. It was through a common friend, he initially got in touch with producer Ram Talluri who facilitated a story narration rendezvous with the mass maharaja. “Ravi garu liked the story immediately and he asked me only one thing: ‘How did you see me in Ramarao?’ I replied, saying that he absolutely fit the bill. I even quoted two-three projects of his. He rang me after 10 days. We spoke in general without discussing Ramarao. A month later, the conversation was around Ramarao. I asked for a script reading session with him to which, he said, ‘If this is what you want I can do it’. I think he never had a script reading session previously in his career. Maybe he had bits and pieces for some important episodes. But Ramarao on Duty was his first script reading exercise with a full script. He said it’s a good thing to do and the exercise went on pretty well. After that we were waiting for his dates to be cleared. Then, one fine day he said, ‘Let’s do it’. I narrated the script to him in December 2019, but because of the pandemic we got delayed. We went to the floors last July,” Sarath recalls fondly in an exclusive conversation with us.
In the film, shot around Hyderabad, Vikarabad, Maredumilli forest, Chittoor and Spain for around 80-85 days, the usually ebullient Ravi plays an honest mandal revenue officer, a first-of-a-kind role for him. “What is his connection with the missing people forms the crux of the story. It goes on and on and leads to something which everybody can connect to,” Sarath promises.
He points out that an incident which transpired in his friend’s life triggered him to conceive and later pen the story. “My friend’s father went missing suddenly one day and he struggled a lot to locate him. If a loved one passes away, we can make peace with it after a while because death is natural. But if the same loved one goes missing, we can never know whether he is alive or dead and we even run out of options on what to do. This episode was there in my mind. After that a couple of other incidents happened, which I can’t disclose because they form a plot twist. Based on these two incidents I came up with the story,” he reveals, adding that the film is set in 1995.
Did he give any references as such to Ravi before beginning the film? “Not really. If you explain something to him, he grasps it quickly. Also, during the reading session itself, he understood that his character has certain parameters. It’s an intense role, which required him to be subtle. He was always very open and would say that if Ravi Teja of other films gets into this role, you should tell so that I’ll be conscious. I don’t think I ever had to tell him but a couple of times when it came to different lines, he tried going the old way and he himself said, ‘No, no no! Not here, not in this film’,” Sarath maintains.
Before the trailer was released, the buzz surrounding Ramarao on Duty was appalling. The fact that Ravi’s last, Khiladi, was an unmitigated disaster added to its problems. Thanks to the atmospheric trailer though, the buzz escalated and now there is enough anticipation surrounding the film. But with audiences not coming to cinema halls like before, is it a cause of concern for him? Sarath responds, “I don’t say it’s a concern but I do notice what is going around. I believe it’s the trailer and the early buzz that does the trick for a film’s initial. But then everything changed after the pandemic. Unknowingly, inflation is impacting a lot of people. For instance, I didn’t know the cost of diesel until I paid cash last month. Earlier, I used to do transactions through my card. Suddenly, I realized that the cost of diesel is Rs 106 per litre. I remember it used to be Rs 76 sometime back. I don’t even know when it has gone up so much. It pinched me a little bit. I realized that the cost of living has gone up and entertainment is literally the last thing on people’s mind. Their first preference is their household needs, EMI etc etc. The entertainment, which primarily used to be cinema, is coming later for them. Now, there are also OTTs which are available at affordable prices, so you don’t have to go out, burn the fuel and spend so much. As filmmakers, we all need to cope up and understand that it’s a recession kind of situation for cinema and other forms of entertainment. But I think we will cross this phase,” he hopes.
Growing up, Sarath insists, he followed different heroes, not caring about directors at all. “It all changed with Ram Gopal Varma’s Siva. Later, Krishna Vamsi burst on to the scene. I started seeing films as products of directors. After I decided to become a filmmaker, I started following Vetrimaaran, Sukumar and Gautham Vasudev Menon. Then there is obviously Rajamouli garu as well. When it comes to his films, you just become a part of the audience. I love David Fincher’s films as well. I have a little bit of his influence in script writing. Like him I don’t reveal everything in a scene. I reserve half of it for the next scene. It’s like interlacing. When it comes to making, I love our makers more than those from the West,” he asserts, adding that as a writer-director he doesn’t want to associate himself with run-of-the-mill stories. “Whatever I write, it has to have some uniqueness.”
-NAGARAJ GOUD
