HYDERABAD: A common sight on highways are the hitchhikers looking for a free ride. This coupled with the fact that many youngsters from villages go to cities in search of better livelihood was what prompted Jaai Shekkar Logishetty to make a film on it. He came up with the story of a man who while driving on the road comes across a boy looking for a ride to reach his village. The time spent in the car ride and the journey thereafter is what forms the crux of The Highway. Made on a really low budget of Rs 7000, the film was shot by Jaai in a matter of two days. “Those who see the film immediately recognise the Outer Ring Road which was not open to the public at the time of making the film. We were really lucky that way,” admits Jaai Shekkar. With some of the equipment sourced from the Potti Sriramulu Telugu University, Jaai rented the other half with his own savings. As someone who observed a lot of young boys making their way from the village into the city, Jaai wanted to explore the human emotions that come into play in his film. “I wanted to take the village-urban concept through the purview of a brother-sister relationship. I think studying these human sentiments makes for a better story anyday,” adds Jaai whose crew members were made up of his classmates at the university. As to the boy who plays the hitchhiker, finding him, Jaai says was not very difficult. “If one observes carefully, a lot of our films will have the same actors doing the roles. For my film, my batchmate Naveen fit the bill very well,” says Jaai who has made four short films with varying themes. “Each film was shot on a very low budget.
The first film The Classroom was a horror thriller which got a very good response, after that The Highway is one film was appreciated a lot,” says the 30-year old who is now planning to make a feature film with a storyline that revolves around the relationship between a professor and a student.