Warangal cinematographer wins Asian New Talent Award in Shanghai

Acharya Venu, who hails from Warangal district, has bagged a prestigious honour at the recent Shanghai International Film Festival

Acharya Venu grew up in Rangaiahpally, Warangal district, and he remembers a film unit coming to shoot in his village temple when he was in Class IX. He spotted director of photography P G Vinda and thought cinematography would be an interesting line to pursue.

A few years later, Acharya enrolled in Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, and studied fine arts. “I was interested in drawing and painting and took up the course. But by the time I finished, I felt that wasn’t enough for me. I then pursued a post graduate diploma course in Motion Picture Photography from Satyajat Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata,” he says.

From Rangaiahpally, Acharya hadn’t imagined that he will, one day, get recognised for his work in an international film festival. His cinematography for the Garo language (Meghalaya) film Ma.Ama (which means ‘moan’) fetched him the Asian New Talent Award at the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival, on June 22. The Meghalayan film was among the 14 films that were shortlisted from 300 entries.

A still from the Garo film Ma.Ma

A still from the Garo film Ma.Ma  

Acharya has worked on ad films, sports promotional films, and was in the second unit cinematography team for the Telugu film Jersey, directed by Gautam Tinnanuri. Now, he has a Sri Lankan film, another film titled Little Monk that’s set in Arunachal Pradesh, and is in talks for a Telugu feature film.

Talking about Ma.Ama, Acharya says it was an experimental project directed by Dominic Sangma, “The story is that of the director’s mother; it’s a personal and emotional journey of his father (who is also the protagonist of this film) in search of certain truths about his mother, who’s now no more. Incidents that happened more than 10 years ago were recalled and all the actors in the film are his family members.”

Elaborating on the cinematography, he says, “We used a single camera and a few reflectors. We didn’t have any fancy equipment,” he says. The unit shot in Meghalaya in December 2017 when the weather conditions varied between being cloudy and sudden showers. “Given the changing light conditions and mostly working with non-actors, it was challenging,” he says.

Acharya discloses that his intention wasn’t to merely capture the beauty of Meghalaya, but highlight the emotions that were relevant to the story. “There’s an opening sequence, of a dream, where a man is looking for his wife. It’s an open field and the landscape is beautiful, but I was sure I also need to make the audience understand his emotions,” he says, adding that it was not easy to work with the cast whose language (Garo) he didn’t follow.

MA.Ama, he says, might be available to view on digital platforms after it does the international film festival circuit. As for his own journey, Acharya is looking forward to the Sri Lankan film and is keen to chart out his own course.

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