HYDERABAD: Avakaya and cinema - two things that form the core of every hardcore Telugu person. It didn’t take Akella Peri Srinivas (simply AP for friends) long to realise that movies are his true calling. He remembers a significant portion of his time was spent watching movies, absorbing movies like a sponge, processing the nuts and bolts of it and making a mental note of the intricacies that could have been added.
So it was just a matter of time before the investment banker turned into a director-cum-producer, all for the love of cinemas. He loves movies of grandeur and he is looking forward to make another visually extravagant movie.
After securing a mechanical engineering degree from Osmania University and an MBA from IIM Lucknow, AP spent his time swimming in the world of investment banking - advising companies on their corporate strategy, financial strategy and fundraising. He headed a tech company for over six years. He worked at ICICI in project finance and was also instrumental in setting up ICICI Knowledge Park at Shameerpet. However, despite his illustrious career, AP knew that life is not just the economics and finance, but cinema, that was his passion, that has to be done.
“Since childhood, I used to watch a lot of Telugu and Hindi movies multiple times. In fact, I was termed as a 'database' among my friends when it came to the who's who in movies such as directors, cinematographers, music composers, singers and actors. Initially, I was a simple consumer of films solely for entertainment’s sake. As time went by, I started enjoying breaking down and analysing the emotions portrayed in a movie. I started to analyse how a director could have treated the movie differently to make it more interesting,” explains AP.
“Finally in 2000’s, I decided to write a script. I studied how to structure a story and put a form to it for narrating a film. I started watching Hollywood movies to understand that the core construct of a good movie is : character, conflict and conflict resolution,” he explains.
“Although I completed my first script in 2005, it took me five years to decide to invest in films. During this period, I interacted with industry insiders from Bollywood and Tollywood to explore possibilities and developed deep relationships. Finally in 2015, I felt that it was the right time to get into filmmaking,”AP explains.
Romcom on millennials
The Millennials’ dreams and mindset fascinated AP (age:50 years) and it wasn’t tough for him to decide that he would be making his debut with romcom based on them. “For the millennials (people born during the mid 90s and early 2000s), it means passion.
Chasing one's dreams and standing out, instead of fitting in. They know how to balance love with career, are adequately motivated and are sufficiently endowed with the knowledge to make their own decisions. The parental influence is far lower now and millennials are confident, motivated and goal oriented to take their own decisions and navigate the ever-changing complex world” he explains.
“My protagonist is a smart, fun loving, well-built, career-oriented guy with specific goals and principles. My heroine is a Starbucks fan girl, who chooses not to go to pubs, who is sure of herself and exercises her choice. Mind you, my movie will not preach.
My objective is to keep the smile on the lips of the viewer for a good part of the film. While the movie is about youth, romance, and career conflicts, the movie can be watched by a grand child and a grand parent together,” he concludes.