P.P. Sudevan wanted to direct a film. The college drop-out had never been to film school or worked on a film but that didn’t deter him. In his village Peringode, tucked away in Palakkad, Kerala, Sudevan and his friends learnt through trial-and-error. They acted, they shot, they edited, and they released a few short films, of which Thattumpurathappan , a 50-minute satire, became a must-see for film buffs in Kerala.
Sudevan followed it up with a feature film, CR NO. 89 , made for a measly ₹7 lakh. “Even the production was a team effort and I decided to cast actors from Peringode. We got together on our off days to shoot the movie,” he says.
CR No. 89 went on to win the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) award for the best Malayalam film at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) in 2013, and also bagged the Kerala State Award for best film. Now, Sudevan’s new portmanteau film is getting ready, and the team is busy trying to release it in June without depending on the powerful distributors’ network. Within three years, this young director has become all the rage with his raw, minimalistic films made and shot with the help of film-lovers from Peringode.
Malayalam cinema is changing. The last three-four years have seen the rise of the indie and one major offshoot of this is the conspicuous absence of star presence.
This was highlighted when this year’s national and state film awards were announced, and best film, actor and director were all bagged by indies. The latest on that list is Anil Thomas’ Minnaminungu , starring Surabhi Lakshmi, who brought Kerala the national award for best actress after 14 years. There isn’t a single ‘star’ in the film.
Welcome change
Indie filmmaker Sanalkumar Sasidharan, whose film Sexy Durga won the Hivos Tiger award at the Rotterdam festival this year, says the waning of star power is a welcome change that can only enrich the cinema industry. Sasidharan is an important part of that change. His three films have had no stars and, in fact, the much-acclaimed second one, Ozhivudivasathe Kali , his noir take on the malevolence of the caste system, which won the State award for best film in 2016, was made with newcomers, and Sexy Durga had neither screenplay nor script.
“The stars might become a burden. Their price tags are way above our budget and we are forced to plan the film according to their ‘image’ and convenience, or make a movie that boosts their ratings. We don’t have that luxury. My movies are made to communicate with my viewers. I can’t change them for a star’s image. That is why I enjoy working with actors who don’t come with baggage,” says Sasidharan.
Since Sudevan’s actors are often completely new to cinema, he first has to take the time and effort to familiarise them with the camera. “For instance, Randu (2008) is a short film about a well-digger. The actor is a well-digger in real life. Once I decided to cast him, he would come to the vayanashala (reading room) every evening, and we would make him practise his lines, which he had improvised, in front of the camera and then run it for him to see how he had done. Over a period of time, he became comfortable with the camera and when we moved to the actual location, he had no problem being natural in front of the camera. My actor is someone from the same background, and knows he/ she is part of the entire process of film-making. That makes the filming very organic,” says Sudevan.
Bijukumar Damodaran, Sajin Baabu, Satish and Santhosh Babusenan, C.S. Sudevan, Manoj Kana, Shanavas Naranipuzha, Vidhu Vincent and Anil Thomas—none of these indie filmmakers walking the red carpet at prestigious festivals today has worked with superstars.
Constraints many
Shoestring budgets are not the only reason to stay away from stars. As self-taught filmmaker Bijukumar Damodaran explains, “When your film is picked up at a major festival, the curators don’t look at the cast. They go by treatment, theme and characters. So, it doesn’t help much if we cast a superstar or not.” Damodaran’s films now get the backing of major producers though he had to struggle for a long time to make his kind of cinema.
“I travelled all around Kerala to find the lead actors for Asthamayam Varey ,” recalls Sajjin Baabu, whose maiden film won the top award at IFFK in 2014. “I wanted actors who would be able to work with me for about 25 days in the forest. I doubt I would have been able to afford any well-known face.”
Baabu’s second film, Ayyal Sasi , which is up for release, makes a shift in this with senior actor Sreenivasan, but the star teams with many lesser-known actors drawn from the periphery of film and theatre.
Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Angamaly Diaries , which conquered the box office recently, had 86 freshers in the cast. Maheshinte Pratikaram , which won this year’s national award for best feature film in Malayalam and for best screenplay, had only Fahadh Faasil as a star. Many of the other actors in that gem of a film were completely new to cinema.
For Vidhu Vincent’s much-acclaimed Manhole , that looks at manual scavengers in modern Kerala, she got members of the community to talk about their lives and work. Not surprisingly, her film won the FIPRESCI award forbest Malayalam film at IFFK last year and also for best debut director. Vincent also became the first woman to win the Kerala award for best film.
What has helped many indie directors is the screening of their films in government-run theatres, but many of them have been doing well in private theatres too. Sasidharan’s Ozhivudivasathe Kali , for instance, ran for three weeks. And Angamaly Diaries was a runaway hit.
This might soon become the norm. In Bollywood, for example, biggies like Dangal have used newcomers to great effect. “Commercial cinema has always followed art house cinema. If the experiment works, mainstream movies will catch on quickly and try to replicate the success in a commercial format,” says Sasidharan.
Like Pellissery says, new actors and directors can only rejuvenate the industry: “It’s high time actors were for characters and not the other way around.”
saraswathy.nagarajan@thehindu.co.in
