Apoorva Singeetam Playlist (click on the icon with three horizontal lines with a play button on the top left of the video player)
Singeetam Srinivasa Rao is a bit of a marvel. He could not only conjure up fantastical worlds on celluloid but also compose the music to accompany them, even penning the odd lyric for good measure. That's Srinivasa Rao in a nutshell, a filmmaker who makes a Swiss Army knife look positively under-equipped.
Born in 1931, in the Gudur town of what was then Madras Presidency, young Singeetam had a knack for both plays and music, a hint of the creative whirlwind to come. He even earned a Physics degree, which presumably helps when you're dreaming up time-travelling contraptions like the one in his 1991 sci-fi hit, Aditya 369.
His journey to cinema, however, wasn't quite straightforward. Imagine trying to get a meeting with your cinematic hero, K.V. Reddy, the director of the legendary Mayabazar. Well, Srinivasa Rao did just that, and after much persistence, landed an apprenticeship with Reddy, learning the ropes on films like Jagadeka Veeruni Katha. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!
From there, he launched his directorial career, making films in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, you name it! He even directed a silent film, Pushpaka Vimana, which, remarkably, won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film. Now, that's a feat worthy of a silent cheer!
But awards, for Srinivasa Rao, are like buses. You wait for ages, then a whole bunch arrive at once. He has two National Film Awards, a stack of Nandi Awards (five, to be precise), and three Karnataka State Film Awards, not to mention three Filmfare Awards South. He even picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Film Federation of India in 2011.
And what were these award-winning films like, you ask? Well, there's Mayuri, a 1984 biographical dance film that scooped up 14 Nandi Awards – FOURTEEN! Then there's Dikkatra Parvathi, a Tamil social problem film that nabbed both a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award South. And let's not forget Bhairava Dweepam, a 1994 fantasy film, which garnered him the Nandi Award for Best Director.
The man is a genre-hopping maestro. He's made science fiction, fantasy, mythology, comedies, social dramas – a cinematic smorgasbord that would make even the most discerning cinephile drool. It's like he took a look at the filmmaking rule book and said, "Right, that's enough, time to make up my own rules."
And you know what? It worked. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao is a reminder that sometimes, the best way to achieve success is to throw caution to the wind, embrace your creative impulses, and make films that are as unique and unpredictable as you are.