Bengaluru director Raam Reddy’s debut movie Thithi has bagged two top awards – Pardo d’oro Cineasti Del Presente Premio Nescens and Swatch First Feature Award at the Locarno International Film Festival. The Kannada film, which starred a cast of non-professional actors, became the first Indian movie in eight years to be selected in competition at the festival.
It featured in the Concorso Cineasti del Presentesection at the festival, held from August 5 to 15. “It has always been a dream of mine to capture a little piece of India’s soul on film, and this was the attempt with Thithi. Some of the characters in the film have become symbols to me. I feel blessed to have had the chance to immortalise them. These awards and the overwhelmingly positive response in Locarno signals that the film has had a wonderful start to its journey, and that the collective soul of a magical community will live on,”said the 25-year-old who is graduate of Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and then went to Prague Film School.
The award was announced on Independence Day, which made the victory even more special for the film team.
Thithi also received a standingovation after its first screening at the festival. The film, shot in the Mandya district of Karnataka is a dramatic comedy. It was co-written by Ere Gowda, who spent most of his childhood in all the villages that the film was shot in. Other Indian films that have been screened at the Locarno film festival in the past were films like Lagaan, Black Friday and Mr and Mrs Iyer.