Chandra Shekar Duvvuri , first time film maker on his film 50 Days

A little background about yourself?

I was born in Kharagpur and brought up in Vizag. I studied Civil Engineering in GITAM (Vizag) and came to the US to  pursue an MS in New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ. I followed the oft beaten path of obtaining a BE followed by an MS and an IT Job and rest follows. What is probably atypical is that I kept my film making dream alive and nurtured it and never let my heart and mind believe that I will not be able to do it. I live in Austin now and work for Nokia.

When did your interest in film making start ?

I really do not know when the film making bug bit me. But I do remember dreaming of becoming a filmmaker since school days and I went to school a long time ago. But certainly got inspired by our great Ram Gopal Verma and his movies  Shiva and Satya. Now it sounds funny but I remember how I tried to correspond with RGV and Nagesh Kukunoor and Shekar Kammula via emails offering to partner with them on story ideas. Yeah, I know its  funny but I always believed I had it in me.

In 1999-2000, my friend (Ranga Ilapavuluri (I believe in giving give credit where it’s due) and I partnered to write some scripts and perhaps make a telefilm. We were clear that we would think out of the box and not be the mainstream guys. We dabbled with a few ideas and helped with the story and making of a feature film. And then, life took over: dot com bust, lay offs, struggle to maintain the job and legal status and all that drama followed. But again, I managed to keep my dream alive.

How did you get an idea about this film? Is this your first film?

This film is based on the dreaded Blue whale Suicide Challenge. I read a lot of news and made notes on anything that I believe might make a good premise. The dread this Blue Whale challenge has created in India and Russia in 2017, made it the perfect premise. I used my research and imagination to build a story around that.

Is this my first film: As I mentioned before, I did contribute in the story of a feature length film a while ago but I cannot take credit for that anymore as its been a long time. My friend Sharath Pallemoni and I, worked on a short film in 2017 but it got stuck in technical issues.  So yes, in a way,  this is my first film.

What has been the initial feedback for this movie?

I shared the initial versions of this film with my family and friends and the feedback was amazing but I had to discard all of that as I know they would be very biased. I was looking for critical feedback aimed at pulling the film down.  So I shared with a few people in the film industry and I was pleased that they liked it too. They did mention a few technical issues like camera shake at a few places and dubbing issues. I had a screening in Austin on Jan 12th and I was pleasantly surprised to see the overwhelming response. People, especially parents with teenage kids, started calling me to congratulate  and share how they could relate to the movie. But I still would want to be realistic and take it with a pinch of salt as I know they are trying to be nice to me.

Where can one watch it?

I have not made it public, yet, as I want to see what channels I can showcase this on. I’d love to show case it the major cities but I don’t have the contacts nor logistics. I will try to send to a few film festivals and eventually end up making it public on You Tube.

Here are there teasers of the movie 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYDijysQlhk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtdSIKLL_uM

TV5 media report

https://youtu.be/md5a4bqZrOU

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