The Smoke House restaurant on Vytilla Bypass in Kochi usually wears a deserted look by six in the evening, but today is an exception. A small crowd is gathered outside the main entrance and more people mill around lazily near a side wall as technicians run around the open seating area in the courtyard, setting up lights and getting ready for the next take.
The site is the location for Arikil Oraal , directed by Sunil Ibrahim and starring Indrajith, Remya Nambeesan, Nivin Pauly and Prathap Pothen in main roles. Sunil describes the movie as a thriller, but emphasises that he is not attempting to make it look over the top with slick cinematography. “This is the story of three people who happen to meet and befriend each other in a short period of time, and how each of them slowly discovers the real nature of the other. It is a thriller only in terms of the subject, and we are not planning to load it with a lot of slow motion shots and other gimmicks,” he says.
The scene to be shot features Indrajith, who plays a creative director in a marketing firm, and Remya , essaying a dancer, coming to visit Nivin Pauly’s character ‘Icha’, who works as a waiter. The three then decide to take some time out of their schedules and go on a trip together, which is the crucial segment of the movie that the rest of the plot relies on.
Prathap Pothen plays a psychiatrist in the film, and is seen ambling about the set in a T-shirt and shorts. “It’s always great fun making a movie,” he says, talking about moving to a more fast paced film after Three Dots , “this is a different experience from Three Dots but it’s great, everyone knows what they’re doing,” he says before going to prepare for his next take. The movie will feature a dance performance by Remya Nambeesan (choreographed by Thiruvananthapuram based Samudra). She has lent her voice to the song she is dancing to.
Arikil Oraal is Sunil Ibrahim’s second directorial venture after Chapters . The film is produced by Ashiq Usman under the banner of Milestone Cinemas. Krish Kymal cranks the camera and the three songs in the movie are scored by Gopi Sunder.
