Warangal techie makes it to South Asia Film Festival

• 'IT Happens' is about the growing vibrant Indo-Americans
• Sreekanth Samudrala studied at Kakatiya High School and pursued B Tech at KITS

James Edwin Warangal: A short film 'IT Happens' directed by Sreekanth Samudrala, a US-based software engineer hailing from Warangal, has been selected for the 'South Asia Film Festival' to be held from May 10-12, 2013 at Washington DC in the US. 'IT Happens' is the software engineer's debut movie for which he himself has written the story. He has not only directed but also played the lead role and rendered his voice for the solitary song of the short movie. Not just this, he also handled screenplay. Of the 16 movies selected from Hindi, Malayalam, English, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Urdu, Assamese, Nepalese languages and 'IT Happens' is the only one from Telugu language. Sreekanth's movie 'IT Happens' runs for about an hour and stemmed from a broader idea of the need to tell various stories about the growing vibrant Indian community in the US. Explaining the theme of the movie Sreekanth points out that the members of the Indian community in the US take along with them a rich culture and tradition and at the same time try to adapt to the local cultural and social norms, often resulting in interesting, emotional, inspirational and funny circumstances.

The film explores such characters' relationships with their friends, co- workers, spouses, parents and kids, especially when they are forced to act out of character. "This is a story about three very relatable characters with very distinct personalities, lifestyles, priorities and ambitions" he narrates. There has been an overwhelming response to the premiere show at Dallas and about 800 people watched it in two shows and applauded the movie. Sreekanth is a software engineer by profession working in Dallas, USA. He moved to the US at the age of 20 to pursue his MS and has been living there since 2005 and calls it his 'home away from home'. He pursued his passion by taking up a film making course and also doing internship with Studios 121 in Fort Worth, Dallas while doing his fulltime job as an IT professional. 'IT Happens' is his first directorial venture. "I have always been intrigued by various personalities and their behavior in simple everyday social interactions. How that translates into human relationships. I try to understand the thought processes, behavior and reactions," he explained on his approach to the movie. "His fascination to be a story teller, combined with his curiosity and observation of people from various social and cultural backgrounds and their reactions to various situations fueled his passion to make Movies," said Sreekanth's uncle Vedantham Krishnamacharyulu speaking to The Hans India. Sreekanth is the only son of a retired government teacher Vedantham Lakshmamma who lives here. He studied at Kakatiya High School and pursued B Tech at Kakatiya Institute of Technology and Sciences (KITS). "It is really a moment of pride for us all in Warangal said her mother Lakmamma expressing her pleasure. Films from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Nepal featuring Jaya Bachan, Konkona Sen, Nandita Das, Farooq Sheik, Deepti Naval, Swarup Sampath, Saritha Joshi would be screened. Personalities Juhi Chawla, Pooja Batra, Rahul Khanna, Sanjai Suri would attend the film festival.