HYDERABAD: What would you do if you had Rs 40 lakh in hand? Buy a house or a car or may be, gold?Nag Gottap, an MFA student at JNTU, Hyderabad would have none of it. With the Rs 40 lakh he had, he decided to make a film. “I had Rs 40 lakh savings with which I wanted to buy a house. However, it occured to me that I can buy a house any time but may not be able to make a film,” he says.Thus began the making of Sikharam - The Peak, a feature film which has now been nominated for the 17th International Children’s Film Festival. Sikharam is a story about how children in a tribal village in the East Coast of Andhra Pradesh come together to save an outcaste, who has fallen ill, by carrying her to the town all by themselves, while the whole village refuses to help. Apart from a debutant team, the speacial feature of the film is that it has cast children from juvenile homes in the state. The team members recall that they saw about 800 children in various schools, none of whom fit into the characters of tribal children. In search of raw innocence, they interacted with children from juvenile homes. Here again, about 60 children were observed for a period of time through acting workshops and of them, 11 were finally selected. These children received training for over a month.Gottap, who has the experience of a creative and art director, recalls the initial challenges in directing the children. They would have mood fluctuations. This moment they would be enthusiastic and the next, they were tired. “One of my uncles is a magician. He was with the crew to entertain the children with his tricks whenever they needed to take a break from the shoot,” says Gottap adding that the children were out of their Juvenile Homes on a special permission for 24 days for the shoot. “In many ways it was easier to direct children. They won’t argue unlike adults. It was easy for the team to stick to the plan,” he points out. The dubbing was also done by the children themselves. What made him make this film? People living on the edge have always fascinated him, says the director. He was inspired by people who live on the fringes - slums, railway tracks, footpath. Gottap says he admires their spirit in life, of living from moment to moment, once he got past his intital sympathy. He believes there are heroes among them. And, Sikharam captures their spirit.
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