I heard the name of Satyam Bellamkonda from Naani when he signed the film Snehitudaa..! and also from Ravikiran (Laya serial fame) who's doing another important role in the film. Though I planned to do his interview earlier, it just got delayed beyond schedule due to various reasons and I finally caught hold of him today and spoke to him for a brief time. Here are the excerpts from it for our readers:
Sri: What's your background?
Satyam: I am from Karalapadu from Piduguralla Mandal near to Guntur. My father is an RMP Doctor. I studied there until Intermediate and then went to Kasu Brahmananda Reddy College at Narasaraopeta for my Bachelors degree, but I used to be at movie theatres more times that I was at the college. As my interest in movies dominated, I wanted to become an actor and absconded from there to Hyderabad.
Sri: Interesting! And, what made you move to direction instead of acting then?
Satyam: I didn't know any one at Hyderabad and was not sure how I could go about my pursuit. I initially joined as a cashier in a vegetarian restaurant near New MLA Quarters. After working there for a while, I made some friends among politicians and with their help and encouragement, I planned to go to Chennai and try in films there. I thus landed in Chennai and started going around production offices. Like with anyone else who roamed around, I was promised some role sometimes and was asked to show up the next week or next month and so on... but they were never materialized, like in many such cases too. A friend of mine then advised me to venture into some technical department in films, and he took me to Mouli gaaru and got me in his direction department. Aswani (with athlete Aswani Nachappa) was my first film as an
assistant. I worked with Mouli gaaru for some time and then joined Muppalaneni Siva gaaru with the film Raja.
Sri: So when did you came back to Hyderabad?
Satyam: Muppalaneni Siva gaaru shifted to Hyderabad and I came along. I later joined Sravanthi Movies and worked with Ramana gaaru for films like Elaa Cheppanu..! and Gowri. I moved on to Eetharam Films and worked for Ranam, Yagnyam, Ontari and so on. I worked for Dongodu with Bheemineni Srinivasa Rao, Sowryamwith Siva, Kick with Surender Reddy and so on. In between all these films, I went back to my village and took a break for two years but came back after that as I felt my future was in this career.
Sri: I think you also worked for Veerabhadra?
Satyam: Yes, that was after Yagnyam, when A.S. Ravikumar Chowdary gaaru got a chance to work for the film and asked me to join.
