Shree Karthick goes past forward for ‘Oke Oka Jeevitham’

Debut director Shree Karthick on how his Tamil-Telugu bilingual ‘Kanam’/‘Oke Oka Jeevitham’ stemmed from personal loss and became a sci-fi drama

A story that explores the bond between a mother and son during childhood with a hint of regret as a grown up and an intent to go back in time and change something, with music serving as a foil. Director Shree Karthick says his debut feature film — Oke Oka Jeevitham in Telugu and Kanam in Tamil — is all this and more. “It is an emotional story at its core, but also racy and a fun sci-fi drama,” says the Chennai-based director, over phone. Starring Sharwanand and Ritu Varma in the lead, the film has Amala Akkineni portraying the mother and Nasser as a scientist who facilitates time travel.

The concept of time travel has been explored in Telugu and Tamil cinema, with Aditya 369, Netru Indru Naalai and 24. For Karthick who lost his mother in 2014 and was struggling to cope with the loss, this story stemmed from the void — the protagonist going back in time to see his mother seemed like a natural progression. He wrote the story and screenplay channelling the loss and pain but was conscious that it has to be fun and engaging: “I consciously avoided the oft-repeated templates used in sci-fi films. This story will also explore the consequences when one tries to meddle with time.”

Karthick was born to a Telugu mother and a Tamil father. Having grown up in Chennai, he speaks Telugu laced with Tamil. He intended his debut feature film to be a Tamil project, but producers SR Prabhu and Prakashbabu of Dream Warrior Pictures sensed the scope for a bilingual and it grew bigger. 

Sharwanand, a well-known name in Telugu cinema, has occasionally worked in Tamil films — Naalai Namadhe, Engeyum Eppodhum and JK Enum Nanbanin Vaazhkai. Karthick has known Sharwanand and had been pitching stories for a few years: “He liked this one and was also keen to do it in Tamil.” The project marks Amala’s return to Tamil cinema after the 1991-film Karpoora Mullai. In Telugu, she was last seen in Sekhar Kammula’s Life is Beautiful a decade ago and appeared in a fleeting cameo in Manam. 

“Sharwa, Ritu Varma, Amala ma’am and Nasser sir feature in both the languages. We cast Priyadarshi and Vennela Kishore as friends in Telugu and Satish and Ramesh Thilak in the Tamil version,” says Karthick, adding that the friends are not sidekicks to the hero. “There is a definite arc to their characters; they add humour but there is also conflict and resolution in their lives.”

For the Telugu dialogues, Karthick took the help of writer-director Tharun Bhascker, whose work he immensely liked in Pelli Choopulu.

Karthick terms Kanam/Oke Oka Jeevitham as his “dream project” for which he worked with “a dream team” that includes his close friends cinematographer Sujith Sarang, editor Sreejith Sarang and music composer Jakes Bejoy: “We are like brothers. It has taken me years to make a feature film, but they are all established names. They knew my mother and the bond I shared with her, so this project is special for them as well.”