if you open my Letterboxd account and go through the lists, you’ll find a list named “Coming of age’s i’ve seen” which comprises of all the coming of age films i have watched. It’s safe to say that it’s my favorite genre of all time.
as humans, we love nostalgia. at least everyone i know deeply reflect on their childhood a lot. Every time i sit down with my friends, our conversations lead towards our time together in the past. how we guys met, that stupid thing we did 3 years ago, an unplanned trip we took. conversations like this Give us a sense of closeness with each other. and coming-of-age genre makes us feel exactly that way.
change is inevitable. every human has or had experienced change. change of a lifestyle, of age, of mindset, it’s the one experience all of us share singularly, yet, is specific to each other. i think the coming of age genre rightfully explores this theme.
what makes cinema uniquely suited to the coming of age genre is it’s ability to trap time. a summer holiday trip, a crush you never went after, a day when everything Changed, cinema preserves these moments long after we’ve forgotten them. when this genre works, it doesn’t feel like someone else is growing up, it feels like you’re returning to a version of yourself you had forgotten.
i’ve been developing a coming of age film for 7 months now, hoping to produce it myself. and i took it around and pitched it to a couple of streaming platforms as well. it has been a turbulent journey so far. and that got me thinking, why do we not have a lot of coming of age genre films in telugu?
I can count on my fingers the number of Telugu films centered on kids, teenagers, or young adults. It remains a largely unexplored genre, despite being one that works almost instantly because of its inherent charm and honesty. From an investor’s point of view, however, the checklist is familiar: a known actor, a recognizable world, clear marketability. And I’ve often found myself struggling to prove that coming-of-age stories can be just as compelling, and just as viable.
Questions like “Who’s going to watch a 15-year-old kid’s story?”, “What’s the big driving story engine?”, and “How do we sell this film?” are doubts that come up repeatedly.
What’s interesting is that Telugu cinema today is more open than it has ever been. Audiences are watching, and accepting, all kinds of films. We love comedy, we love drama unfolding on screen, and more than anything, we respond to honest portrayals of life. Coming-of-age stories sit beautifully within this space.
It feels overdue that we respect this genre more, and begin telling more of these stories.
I don’t know when I’ll get to make my film. But I do believe this: coming-of-age is a genre that will slowly find its footing here, and once it does, it will capture people’s attention in a way only deeply personal stories can.