The crew of Sameer Thahir’s Neelakasham Pachakkadal Chuvanna Bhoomi are all young, dressed sort of uniformly in jeans and all of them sport funky hairstyles – almost as if it’s mandatory to look hep and happening on the set. They are waiting for Dulquer Salmaan, the hero of the film, to join them at the junction that leads to the Collectorate in Thrissur, the day’s location for the film. It has been a long and tiring day for them, shooting with and managing a huge group of students.
A few minutes later, a swanky SUV screeches to a halt and out comes Dulquer, looking stylish and suave. In this scene, Dulquer will ride a ‘Bullet’ motorcycle, with the female lead, Surja Bala, riding pillion. A well-built hunk, who appears to be Dulquer’s bodyguard, jumps on to a motorcycle, as do several of the crew members, in preparation to follow the hero as he rides along the main road.
Ace cinematographer Sameer, who made his debut as a director with the sleeper hit Chappa Kurishu , says: “More than a road movie, I would call Neelakasham… as a biking movie. There are many who are passionate about biking. Here, Kasi (Dulquer Salmaan) and Suni (Sunny Wayne), friends who studied together in an engineering college, are on a trip to Nagaland on two motorcycles. Certain incidents trigger this on road adventure. We wanted to shoot at real locations and as such we have now shot in seven states, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Nagaland and Sikkim. It wasn’t a strenuous shoot. Instead, it was lot of fun.”
Dulquer feels that Kasi is “a bit of a lost soul. He is on this journey to find himself. Kasi decides to undertake the journey after being inspired by certain books. During the shoot we actually met some riders and it was so thrilling,” he says, while getting ready to hop on the Bullet, which he adds, is part of a flashback scene.
Meanwhile, Sunny Wayne, who has completed his portions already, is at the location just to hangout with his friends. “Kasi and Suni are together all the time. Off screen, Dulquer and I have been good friends, ever since we debuted in Mollywood together with Second Show . Our rapport with each other made the whole shooting experience even more beautiful,” he says.
Surja Bala, a Manipuri actor who will make her entry into Bollywood with Zindagi On The Rocks , plays Assi, a Nagamese girl. Assi studied in the same engineering college in Kerala with Kasi and Suni. She is clad in a cotton salwar, which the actor says is not her usual attire. “I have always loved South Indian movies right from my childhood days, especially Tamil movies, and when this offer came, I was really curious. Kerala is a completely new experience for me, and that includes the food here. I did learn a bit of Malayalam but I tend to forget most of the words once the shot has been canned. I have watched a few Malayalam films and would love to do more films here,” says the actor.
Neelakasham Pachakkadal Chuvanna Bhoomi is being produced under the banner of Happy Hours Entertainments. The story and screenplay is by Hashir Mohamed. The cinematographer is Girish Gangadharan and the music director is Rex Vijayan.
