Welcome to Shekar Kammula's Web World

For more than a decade now the dream of the average technically qualified Indian has been to get a job in America. It must have taken an overriding passion for film making to leave the coveted NRI status to make a film. Shekar Kammula's decision to do just that initially flabbergasted everyone. He quickly put their doubts to rest by winning the national award for the "Best First Film of a Director" at the 47^th national film festival for his first film "Dollar Dreams".

Shekar Kammula changed the whole perspective of Telugu cinema with his films 'Dollar Dreams', 'Anand' and 'Godavari'. We had disgruntled old timers who felt that one could no longer hope to see movies like 'Mayabazar', 'Missamma' 'Gundamma katha' etc .In recent times with the exception of film makers like KVishwananth who has a string of artistically made films like 'Sagara Sangamam', 'Swathimuthyam' , 'Swarnakamalam' etc.to his credit , most Telugu films have banked on obscenity, violence and crude humour to make it to the box office. With his films Shekar has shown that it is possible to create films with romance and not vulgarity, fighting scenes but not blood curdling violence, pleasant music and not high voltage beats. He has created real life like characters who we can identify with - middle class people who think, act and dress like ordinary middle class people. He has steered clear of stereotypes and his women characters are independent and modern in their thinking and not mere props for the male characters as is the case in most Telugu movies.

With 'Happy Days' Shekar has touched the hearts of all college going students and those who went to college at some time in their lives. This movie can be said to be ground breaking in a sense because earlier any film based on college life (and there have been several) always had the same story line, the same stale jokes and stereotypical imbecilic lecturers. It is to Shekar's credit that he took an entirely new cast and made a film as close to reality as possible. It is a tribute to him as a director that all who have seen the film have come out identifying themselves with one or the other of the characters in the film. The sense of nostalgia provoked by the film was strong enough for many to see the film over and over again.

Shekar Kammula's passion and commitment for film making is very apparent from the fact that when one of his movies went over budget, he told the producer that he would not charge any remuneration until they cut even. He feels that The real pleasure is not when the movie is a hit or a flop, the thrill comes when the first copy is out.