Despite the stigma that led Covid-19’s patients to be excluded even through those they enjoyed, Dulam Satyanarayana, an award-winning Telangana documentary filmmaker, decided to talk to them and capture their reports on his camera.
But he arrived here with a charge with the 35-year-old documentary filmmaker from Hyderabad, who contracted the dreaded virus. He has triumphed over the disease and is back in the business of documenting the successes of patients with Covid-19.
During the first week of June, Satyanarayana began making a series of documentary films about Covid-19’s frontline warriors, starting with doctors, paramedics and other physical care personnel concerned about patients in isolation centers and quarantine hospitals, police, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation health workers and ambulance services.
As a component of his mission, he chose Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad, a 100 percent designated center for Covid-19. “Thanks to the cooperation of the fitness and medical decompotor, I ventured with five members of my team to the hospital to document the difficulties of doctors, frontline warriors to fight the disease,” satyanarayana said.
He and his team members were fully supplied with non-public protective equipment (PPE) and their cameras and other appliances were disinfected.
“We have captured every moment of the doctors and their supporting staff, how they toil all through the day to provide the best medical care to the patients and how they infuse a lot of courage and confidence into the patients to overcome the mental trauma,” he said.
Satyanarayana and his team also documented the stories of several Covid-19 patients and their reports at the hospital. “My purpose is to bring a positive aspect to Covid-19’s story: how others can fight the virus with courage and determination and, of course, with self-discipline,” he said.
A week after completing his documentary film about the Covid-19 warriors, Satyanarayana himself began to expand the symptoms of viral disease. “At first I was a little worried, but I discovered the courage. As a suspect, I tested positive on June 22, as did two members of my team. Since I was alone in my home in Hyderabad, I went to quarantine at home for 3 weeks, following very well the remedy advised by the doctors,” he said.
On July 15, Satyanarayana defeated the virus and tested negative. “After resting a few more days, I return to action with my camera,” he said.
Originally from the Mancherial district of Telangana, Satyanarayana began making documentaries when he was just 23 years old. “I lost my father at the age of five and my mother raised me at a tea post in Mancherial. I dreamed of having an IIT engineer, but I ended up as a documentary director,” he said.
He produced the most-acclaimed short films such as Moushini, which depicts the plight of a village that lacked electricity in Sunderbans in West Bengal until 2001 when it became the first village to use solar power; and Dreadful Fate, which exposed the agony of fluoride-affected people in Nalgonda district.
He won the trophy for the most productive tourism film for the production of Welcome Telangana, at the IX INTERNATIONAL Tourism Film Festival ART – TUR held in Portugal in 2016. He received the prestigious CCIP Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. To examine the making of films in Scottsdale. School of Film and Theater, Arizona.
Satyanarayana’s short film in Hyderabad, the lockdown, which captures the quiet streets and striking photographs of picturesque parts of the city, gained enthusiastic media criticism.
Satyanarayana has been delegated and panelist at foreign meetings and film festivals in the United States, Canada, Pakistan, Iran and India. His projects included Telangana culture and traditions such as Bonam, Bathukamma, I am Satyabama and Balakka – Dancing with Tradition.
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