“Aashiqui 2 was my inspiration for Nightingale,” announces Gowtham Namasivayam as he talks about his award-winning short film which he is developing as a full-length feature. His second short film, Mercy, dealt with euthanasia and also won several international awards. “But I saw an opportunity to develop Nightingale as a feature film. It has a personal connect too. The story is about an artist who suffers from an identity crisis as he is questioned if he’d be as good as his musician father. How he creates an identity of his own is what the film deals with. My father is a plastic surgeon and everyone hoped I would follow suit. I completed my MBBS degree, but I am making films now,” smiles Gowtham.

When he went to do his MFA in Filmmaking at the New York Film Academy, Los Angeles, his family was very supportive. “When I told my dad, he just said ‘go for it; I am not going to clip your wings’. And, that’s how my journey began in films,” he says. His Master’s course exposed him to screen writing, editing, direction, cinematography, creative writing and post-production work like sound and colour grading too. As a student of MFA, he often got an opportunity to shoot at Universal Studios too.

Though Gowtham is now based in Los Angeles, he cannot forget his Indian connect. “In Nightingale, lead actor was Dylan Galvin, a guitarist and an upcoming singer in Los Angeles. The female lead is an Indian. She gifts a Taj Mahal model to her boyfriend. In the auditions scene, one of the participants plays a sitar. I grew up in Coimbatore and went on several drives around the city. I was taken on a trip to Delhi during my school holidays. All my films showcase Indianness in some way, I make films in English but show off my love for India. I want to show them how beautiful Kashmir is or, for that matter, our colourful weddings. When I shared photos of my sister’s wedding, my friends in the US thought it resembled something like a Disney Princess wedding.”

Film maker Gowtham Namasivayam   | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Goutham’s first film, Oxymoron, was shot on his phone camera during his winter vacation . “I was stilll doing my graduation. It’s a murder mystery that shows a character dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and won the first prize at Manhattan Short, a global film festival in Mumbai. I made and edited a video for my mom’s birthday when I was 10 years,” he recalls.

He remembers watching Ullathai Allitha several times. “I am fascinated by Padayaippa too. I keep going back to it to learn the nuances of every department of filmmaking. In one of the scenes, Rajinikanth puts his hand inside an ant hill, brings a snake out, kisses it and puts it back. In Hollywood, you see such stunts now in the Harry Potter series. We have done it long ago,” he laughs. He mentions names like Vetrimaaran, Mani Ratnam and Raja Murugan as his inspirations. “Vetrimaaran’s Visaranai was unsettling. I was blown away by his Vada Chennai. Vetrimaaran is an alien who has descended from another planet to make mind-boggling films. If Hollywood has a Martin Scorsese, we have a Mani Ratnam. Raja Murugan is a prodigy. The last scene in his award-winning Joker where the actor asks, ‘Naan jokeraa, neenga jokeraa’ was so impactful.”

Nightingale poster   | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

After he wraps up Nightingale in August, he has two upcoming films — a thriller about a guy trapped in a house (if he goes to sleep he dies!) and another about a person suffering from HIV and set in a hospital environment. “This is close to reality. As a house surgeon in Theni, I saw these people ostracised and shunned. No one will touch or talk to them. Sometimes the patients refuse to take medicines too. I want to use the medium to spread awareness.”

He is excited about being a filmmaker and finds it cathartic, especially the writing process. “I pour out my heart to write a story. Then I add drama and develop it as a larger-than-life experience. I just want to wake up and make more films. It gives me the ultimate high.”