Telugu film industry: Directors’ dilemma

Hyderabad: A filmmaker is as good as his last film. You might have given some of the biggest hits in your career, but a couple of flops and nobody touches you with a barge pole. So when senior director Krishna Vamsi, who hasn’t seen a hit in a while, lost control of his emotions in public — he was in tears when narrating his woes — the others sympathised.  

“Directors are under immense pressure after the flop of a movie — people start to keep a distance,” says Thammareddy Bharadwaj. That’s precisely what Krishna Vamsi was trying to explain. The highly-acclaimed director said he was actually “depressed” and was struggling mentally. After Charan agreed to act in one of his films, the filmmaker is hoping to make a comeback.

“These days most films are high-budget ones and everybody is under pressure when too much money is involved in a film. So when a film flops the director is blamed as the producer loses a lot of money,” adds Thammareddy.

Producer Ashwini Dutt, who would make blockbusters with big stars is now unable to rope in a star for his next project. Rumour is he’s waiting for a superstar to commit to his film even after taking an advance. Ditto with M.S. Raju. Once known as the “hit machine”, the industry has almost forgotten about him.

Another example is director Sekhar Kammula. He was one of the most sought-after filmmakers until Anamika flopped. Then there’s director Sukumar of 1- Nenuokkadine — though he was appreciated for coming up with a novel idea, the Mahesh Babu-starrer flopped and Sukumar has no takers now.

“What’s worse, says Thammareddy, “After the first film becomes a hit, directors have great expectations. They get some advances from other producers, their lifestyle changes... But if their second film fails at the box-office, they run into serious trouble because apart from dealing with repaying advances, no leading actor will commit to their new films.”

K. Viswanath, K. Raghavendra Rao, A. Kodanda Rami Reddy, Kodi Ramakrishna and other directors who gave blockbusters and classics are not keen on making films, because they know they don’t fit in the current times and don’t want to be failures in the last leg of their career.