Rohit and Sasi on ‘Double Engine’: We followed a guerrilla method and wrapped up our film in 12 days

Telugu indie filmmakers Rohit Penumatsa and Sasi, popularly known and Rohit and Camp Sasi of Avanti Cinema, hold forth on the making of their new film ‘Double Engine’, set in rural Telangana. Plans are on to release their earlier film ‘Sheeshmahal’ and a new film ‘Gopi Galla Goa Trip’

In Tatipalli, a hamlet in Telangana’s Medak district, a 21-year-old protagonist and his friends are on a hunt for a double-headed snake in a bid to make big money. The adventure comedy-drama is a coming-of-age story narrated in a rural Telangana setting. What has sparked interest in this indie Telugu film titled Double Engine, scheduled to release in theatres on January 5,is that it comes from Rohit Penumatsa and Sasi (aka Camp Sasi), who go by the screen name Rohit & Sasi. Their earlier films, produced by their in-house firm Avanti Cinema and available in the digital space, have been lapped up by cinephiles and their fame is nothing short of an underground phenomenon. 

Produced by Siddharth Rallapalli and Vishwadev Rachakonda, who had backed Pareshan, Double Engine is a 110-minute Telugu film in the Telangana dialect. The film borrows its title from the slang used in the crime world, with reference to double-headed snakes.

Double Engine took shape in 2021 as an attempt to follow the journey of Muni, an aspiring actor. Hailing from Tatipalli, Muni would travel to Hyderabad for auditions. In his spare time, he would drive his brother-in-law’s seven-seater auto to make some money. He had cracked the auditions for the web series Kotha Poradu and also worked in Ram Gopal Varma’s (RGV) Aasha Encounter, which was based on the Disha encounter incident.

Rohit and Sasi knew Muni and were intrigued when he told them that he was visiting his village to help his mother, a health worker, conduct door-to-door survey during the pandemic. “We thought there was a story to be told in the style of Iranian cinema, if we could document how people in the village are curious to know about Muni’s experience as an actor who worked with RGV,” recalls Sasi.

This sort of a ‘meta’ narrative, touching upon the film industry, is something that Rohit and Sasi have dealt with earlier. On visiting Tatipalli, which has less than 100 houses — stone-wall structures — and seemed like a Western setting, they wondered about the possibility of a rural story with a crime angle. Aware of hunts for double-headed snakes, Sasi thought it would make for an interesting premise. A team member told them about the term ‘double engine’ and they found their title. Rohit and Sasi worked on the screenplay and dialogues, and directed the film.

Double Engine uses some of Muni’s real-life traits of aggression, and skills such as driving the seven-seater auto and riding the bike at high speed. The rest of the cast includes theatre actors and amateurs. 

The duo’s method involves outlining a situation or a scene to their actors, giving them bullet points on what to talk about and observing how they improvise. “In two or three days, we get an idea of each one’s strengths and we write the dialogues accordingly,” says Rohit, adding that in this film, the viewer will not be able to spot the dialogues written in the script and the improvisations.