SINGAPORE — He may be an award-winning director with a string of critically acclaimed short films to his name. But director K Rajagopal still gets butterflies in his stomach when he embarks on a new film.

“Making a film has always been a nerve-wracking thing for me — even if it’s a short film,” he said. “I’m a person who, before I make a film, feel like I’m always doing something for the first time.” And that was how he felt only a few days ago when shooting for his debut feature film A Yellow Bird began.

This is coming from the man who won the Singapore International Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize three years in a row, with I Can’t Sleep Tonight (1995), The Glare (1996) and Absence (1997); not to mention a flurry of accolades, awards and acclaim with other short films, including Timeless, The New World and Brother; as well as his contributions to the film anthologies 7 Letters and Lucky 7.

Despite his nervousness, the director admitted that he was rather excited to be finally starting work on the feature film, which tells the story of an ex-convict who tries to re-connect with his family after his release from prison. It stars local actors Sivakumar Palakrishnan, Udaya Soundari and Nithiyia Rao and Bollywood star Seema Biswas, among others.

“This is something I’ve been looking forward to for the longest time,” said Rajagopal, adding that it took him years to get the film off the ground. “I needed to make sure that this was the story I wanted to tell. That took a while to figure out. But it has finally happened.”

Filming A Yellow Bird ought to take about 25 days, he said. “There are some constraints at the moment, but I think we can make it work.”

GETTING STARTED

Making it work is something that Rajagopal is familiar with in his “rollercoaster ride” of journey in film-making. He started making short films when he was still working in another job. “I made my first film while I was moonlighting at a hotel in Little India. I saw all these Sri Lankan workers who wanted to go to Europe because of the problems in their country and they couldn’t sleep at night,” he recalled.

“That’s how I got the title for my first film I Can’t Sleep Tonight. I wrote about people in Little India who couldn’t sleep and why they couldn’t. That’s how my film ‘career’ started.”

While he said that he’s not the kind who will churn out a film every year (“it doesn’t work that way with me”), Rajagopal said that he did have little signs that influenced his decision to make films.

“When I Can’t Sleep Tonight won at the Singapore International Film Festival, one of the judges was (Indian film-maker) Adoor Gopalakrishnan,” said Rajagopal. “I have always loved the films he did. He made very few films, but he started a new wave of Indian cinema back in the 1970s.”

After his win, Rajagopal approached Gopalakrishnan and expressed his desire to work with him. “He said, ‘Give me five years of your life’. And I couldn’t at the time. It’s one of my biggest regrets. But at the same time, it was, like, ‘Wow, who would think this could happen to me?’”

That winning streak continued. “Every time I made a film that was in the Singapore International Film Festival, I won. It was great encouragement at the time. I was very lucky.”

It was a great achievement, considering that he had very little resources when he was starting out. “Now, I can work with great art directors, costume designers, directors of photography … But I never had that back then. I knew nothing about cameras. I just knew that I wanted to shoot (the film) in Little India. I didn’t even have actors — they were all non-actors.”

Thankfully, he got by with a little help from his friends. “I have good people around me and that really helps a lot. I am really grateful for that. Rose Sivam (who produced and co-directed I Can’t Sleep Tonight) came with a camera and did that film with me. That’s when I realised, ‘I can do this’.”

PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF

Rajagopal faced a steep learning curve in the early days of his film-making journey. Luckily, he could draw on his experience working in theatre, which he had done for years. “I had the opportunities to work with some of the best theatre directors such as Ong Keng Sen and Kuo Pao Kun,” he elaborated. “I learnt about character playing, script-writing, subtext, how to approach things.”

Yet, despite his initial success, Rajagopal let movies take a back seat for “quite a while”. Instead, he worked on television projects such as Anita’s Complaint and The Boy Who Was Not There for the Arts Central channel, and he even popped back into theatre after an 11-year hiatus, playing the title role in The King Lear Project in Brussels and at the Singapore Arts Festival in 2008.

His re-entry into film was with a contribution for the anthology series Lucky 7 (where seven directors offered short films that were linked to one another). This was followed by The New World (in 2008), Timeless (2010) and his contribution to 7 Letters this year (coincidentally also featuring seven directors).

Now, of course, there is A Yellow Bird, which was the only film from Asia to be selected for the 10th Cinefondation’s L’Atelier at Cannes. It was also the first Singaporean film to be selected for this prestigious segment. This came on the back of Rajagopal becoming one of eight recipients of the Singapore Film Commission’s New Talent Feature Grant (NTFG), which supports promising first or second time feature film-makers with a grant of up to S$250,000.

The director said the fact that A Yellow Bird is finally being made boiled down to one thing: Persistence. “I resisted making a feature film at first because I thought I couldn’t do it after years of making only short films. When I made short films, I wanted to do a feature film, but it didn’t happen at the time.

“I already had the story (but) it took me so long to actually start. It was Fran (Borgia, founder of Akanga Film Asia) who came up to me and said, ‘Let’s do it’ ... But if I didn’t have that persistence to want to make feature films ... You know, you need that persistence, because it may take a long time — and things will come in-between — before you can get what you want. But don’t give up if you have something good going. You should just pursue it.”

He added, almost as an afterthought: “It’s not about ambition but it’s a personal thing. Because frankly, what else do I have?”

THE ULTIMATE GOAL

Talking to Rajagopal, you would be forgiven if you thought he looked at film-making as a study in contrast. For starters, while he acknowledges that having a script to follow is important, he is also happy to play it by ear.

“I’m not a person who likes to plan things to a T. I always find that something will happen and change, and I get inspiration from it,” he said. “Like, sometimes the actor will do something that’s not in the script — but I’ll just use it anyway. I take things as they come. There’s no such thing as a fixed script. But you have to use different approaches for different stories.”

Also, while he likes the collaborative process of film-making, he admitted that he was “a bit of a dictator” on set. “I just like the actors to just do (what I tell them) sometimes. Film-making isn’t always democratic, otherwise there’d be chaos!”

Nevertheless, Rajagopal said he is in a good head space at the moment. “I am very happy with my life. A lot has happened, but something has come together for me. I actually started late coming into film-making. Now, 20 years later, I’m here. It’s been very emotional for me. I feel I have matured and I like the space that I’m in.”

But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have any trepidation. “Perhaps this could be the only feature film I make. I’m going to give it my all, because I don’t know what will happen next; but then, uncertainty sometimes drives you crazy.”

Despite all his success with film, Rajagopal does not want to be labelled a film-maker.

“I tell people, I sometimes make films, which is true. Because I don’t do this all the time,” he quipped.

“Sometimes, I feel I’ve not reached that level to be called a film-maker. So I want to push myself to get to that level (where there is) no compromise,” he added. “Of course, over here, you have to compromise and sometimes that really bothers me. But I want to do a film ... and not allow anything to come in my way. That’s the ultimate goal.”

Only time will tell if that will happen. But right now, the director is focused on getting A Yellow Bird off the ground.

“I want A Yellow Bird to fly as far as it can — is that corny enough?” he joked.

“I want this film to travel and see what the response is going to be around the world. I don’t want to label this as a Singaporean film. It’s a film. We made it in Singapore. I’m proud of that — there’s no other place I’d want to make this film because it’s about my country and the space I live in.

“But I’d like to see what others think about it.”

A Yellow Bird is expected to be released next year.