A cast of non-actors, with their village as backdrop, has made a splash in film festivals around the world, with young Indian director Raam Pratap Reddy picking up two awards for his debut film “Thithi” at the recently concluded Shanghai International Film and TV Festival.

Awards for best film and best scriptwriting in the Asian New Talent category were Reddy's 15th awards, after previous successes at Locarno, Marrakech, Palm Springs, San Francisco and other festivals.

The success of “Thithi” lies with the farmers roped in to become actors, prompting even Francis Ford Coppola, director of “The Godfather,” to hail them as "unforgettable characters."

The film tells the story of three generations of a family reacting to the death of the patriarch Century Gowda. No one sheds a tear at his passing. Rather, his death leads to a series of amusing events ahead of the planned "thithi," or the funeral ritual. The eldest son Gaddappa wanders around the village like a nomad, while his son Thammappa and his grandson Abhi search for him to complete the ritual.

In a subplot, Thammappa needs the signature of his walkabout father to transfer the ownership of a plot of land. Unable to get Gaddappa to sign the papers, the son tries to send him away and bribes a village official to issue a death certificate in his father's name — all on borrowed money. What follows is a sequence of events that is both comical and philosophical, highlighting the contradictions of human nature.

Comments about the film from viewers on the Chinese film review website Douban have largely been positive, earning the movie 8.4 points out of 10. It has yet to find distribution in Chinese cinemas.

"There is lot of interest in films like this, but we don't have accesses to distributors," said Sunmin Park, the co-producer. "This film, being Asian, will appeal to many groups here."

Meanwhile, Reddy, 27, is basking in his newfound fame. He sat down with Shanghai Daily to discuss his film, art-house cinema and the creative need for originality in storytelling.

Q: How would you describe “Thithi?”

A: I think my favorite word would be “playful.” It is a playful, light-hearted slice-of-life film in a rural setting. I wanted to work with non-professionals. I wanted people to experience life there and the characters you would see in a village. I have had lot of people say it is a documentary, while others call it black comedy. But it is neither. It is a film about life in the Indian context.

Q: Is there a message in the film?

A: Not actively but perhaps subliminally. I knew I had to contextualize the character of Gaddappa for the film to have any meaning. He is beyond materialism in a typically human way. He is a free spirit and roams around. He is just walking. There is this freedom and simplicity in his character. Eventually he shines out as a hero in the film. He is the one I want people to remember.

Q: Tell us something about your co-writer Eregowda?

A: He's had an amazing journey. Eregowda is from Nodekoppalu — the village where we shot the film. He left home at the age of 16 to look for work in the city. He started as a security guard for a company. And then we had a burglary at our house, and he was hired by father as a guard. I was probably around 10 or 11 years old then. We got to know each other and basically grew up together. We became friends. He was brilliant. Everything he touched, he did well. He was destined for great things. Soon, he started helping my mother, who runs a non-governmental organization and is a social activist. He started to record pictures of her events, and then learned how to edit them.

We did a short film first, with a two-person crew. I am not comfortable with co-writing, but we were two sides of a coin — one the outsider and the other the insider. The film happened because he is from that village. I could not have done it alone, and he could not have done it alone.

Q: So the village is a tourist site now?

A: Well, if you actually go to the village, it won't look too much like it does in the film. It is a very quiet place. Anyone going there might be a little disappointed to see that it is not the same world that they saw in the film.

A lot of the locals agreed to make the film because they wanted to try out something new, just for fun. Their family members are all part of the film. Now they have gone back to their regular lives.

Q: How did you go about picking your cast? Did you give them some sort of screen test?

A: My casting director is also my writer. He wears multiple hats. He is writer, casting director and line producer. The three of us did the work of 15, but that also helped keep the film’s artistic integrity. We drove around the village for eight months. We never had casting calls. The locals wouldn't have come anyway. It was very random. Eregowda knew a lot of people already. We went into homes to talk to people. We wanted to make sure they would be committed to the film. We didn’t want them showing up for 10 days and then abandoning the project. We had no contracts.

We wanted to see how open they were in terms of body language. I think acting is quite a simple thing. You just have to be someone else in your body. We watched for sparks of talent, and after that, we crafted the script around them. The father character actually had a property issue in his real life. The boy was really a gambler. They just had to be themselves in front of the camera.

Q: You roped in an international crew for the film. How did that come about?

A: I attended a Prague film school with them. The director of photography was my classmate. We worked extremely closely. Since I met him, I haven’t made a film without him. I don’t think I will. He is from Holland. His name is Doron Tempert. My editor is from the US, and was also a classmate from Prague. He was 21 years old when I contacted him about the film. We are all quite young. I knew we were talented but we were not experienced.

Q: Do you consider “Thithi” an art-house film?

A: On paper it is. There are no stars, there is no music. It is really a stripped-down way to make a film. But we have proven that it is not exactly an art-house film in India. It is in its 7th week in my home state of Karnataka, and we had a national release as well — a rarity for a south Indian film. “Thithi” has now moved out of art-house genre into popular culture.

This is slightly contentious, but I think the thing that distinguishes an art-house film from a commercial one is the pace. Slower films in terms of narrative pace are less accessible to general filmgoers used to a certain pace of storytelling. Directors Emir Kusturica and Fatih Akin make films that are fairly fast-paced, but Abbas Kiarostami’s films are not so fast-paced. The industry now judges “art house” not by pace but by stars or music, but I think people watch films for stories and for characters and for experiences. I would say “Mad Max: Fury Road” is an art-house film. It’s a visual poem, bold in the way it uses sound, image and camera. It’s art, not Hollywood at all. And it made lot of money.

Q: Will you venture into Bollywood next?

A: No. Absolutely not! I don't find it a good format for storytelling. I find it counterintuitive to break a narrative with songs. I don't see the need to add fight scenes where none is required. I would happily go to the Arctic and make a film about Eskimos. It's about how I tell a story.

Q: What’s next after “Thithi?”

A: I want to play around in the genre of magical realism. I would say even a film like "In the Mood for Love" is borderline magic realism. Magical realism is something very subtle, so I would have to work with professionals. That is something I am looking at. That is all I have now. No story yet.