sontha vooru

When Sontha Vooru title announced , I thought of talking to its director Suneel Kumar, who won five nandi awards and but didn't get proper commerical hit so far. His Children's film Hero won Nandi, then I heard about other movies like Megham, Prayatnam etc. Though I have not seen any of his movies, I used to wonder how he keeps producing movies with such a passion as his movies are not that commercial where as commercial movies are the only thing which matters now a days. When I spoke to him for sometime I realized his passion for good and meaningful cinema. I was surprised to know that Hero was released as a DVD by Shalimar and was big sucess and was sold like a big hero flick. As his new film with hero Raja - Sontha Vooru is getting ready for release, here we present Suneel who talks about himself and his movies.

Background..

I am a mechanical engineer by qualification, journalist by profession and a film maker by passion. I produced Five Telugu films with my friend Yakkali Ravindra babu under the banner of Sravya films and one film in Malayalam under the banner of Rainy Summer Entertainment.. Ravi and myself have been very passionate about filmmaking since our college days. When we decided to make films we thought of making some sensible and good products from our banner. All the films we made got good critical acclaim. If one film talked about the deaf and mute, in one film we dealt with the problem of suicide and another film was about a kid who wants to excel in his life. Our banner won five Nandi awards including two golden Nandi awards in the best film categories. Two films have participated in International Film Festivals.

I published and edited a Telugu monthly named Kokila and a daily newspaper City Roundup based at Visakhapatnam before entering into the film line.

From being an engineer to journalist to a filmmaker

I don't want to stagnate in life. After all it is only one life we get. Even if you believe in rebirth and after life, still I would say it is only one life you would remember. So it is always better to make life more eventful by putting yourself through different experiences.

Journey as filmmaker

As long as I make different, sensible films and enjoy the work, experience and the satisfaction they would bring to me, I would continue in this job of filmmaker. The moment I think I am repeating myself and start fearing the failure, I would exit. There are N number of exiting things in life to do.

I am dead serious about my job. If not, I will not be doing this at all. Every film of mine was and will be a product of my sincere effort. I will take entire responsibility as a maker for the result of that. I have never ever searched reasons for my failures, outside.

Why didn't you get proper recognition by the film industry despite winning Golden Nandi Awards twice?

I think we got more than we deserve. We were only making films successfully, not successful films. Unfortunately success is defined in the materialistic arithmetic. But the interesting thing is many of our friends who made "Successful films", still wonder how we are still making films, when they find it difficult to make another film.