“They were hooting and howling. When we were called on stage, the audience did not even let us speak. That is when we discovered that it did not really matter to us, the derision or the praise. We make films to share what we have to say with viewers; filmmaking is a passion,” say indie filmmakers Satish Babusenan and Santosh Babusenan.
The Babusenan brothers laugh when they recall that incident when their movie Maravi was screened as part of the Malayalam Cinema Today section of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). “A technical glitch affected the first screening of Maravi . The next screening went off well and many told us how much they enjoyed the film,” recalls Satish, the younger of the two.
The two are busy with their sixth film, Chaayam Poosiya Veedu Part II Maya , which is also being scripted, directed and filmed by them. “It is about a man caught in a dream and how he is unable to get out of that dream,” says Santosh. “Or how he learns to live in the dream or out of it,” chips in Satish.
When they talk cinema, words flow, clear and sparkling with ideas. When one begins a sentence, the other completes it, seamlessly fusing thoughts and expressions. The brothers have been on a quest since 1998 when both quit assignments as cinematographers and producers with channels such as MTV, Channel V and Star in Mumbai to return to Thiruvananthapuram to seek answers to their questions about existence and life.
Road to cinema
For nearly 17 years, but for small assignments, they reflected on existential angst and tried to find answers to their questions. “Then we discovered that it was not necessary to find answers to the questions and eventually the questions fell silent. That is when we began making films to convey what we had found,” says Satish, at their white-painted house, Lumbini, on MP Appan Road.
Making their debut with Chaayam Poosiya Veedu (The Painted House) in 2015, the brothers came up with four films in quick succession. Ottayal Patha , their second work, won the Kerala State film award for the second best film. “It is as if the Fifties motivated us to make films quickly to make up for lost time,” says Satish. “Fortunately, for us, our parents and respective spouses put up with our long period of search and introspection. So, we were not under any kind of pressure to make films,” adds Santosh.
Their uncle CP Padmakumar inspired them to make movies without any kind of compromises. Although he had made just two feature films and a handful of short films, he stuck to his kind of art house movies.
“So, when we were making Chaayam Pooshiya Veedu , which was about the masks all of us wear and how it was important to look beyond that exterior, nudity became central to the script and the theme. Although we knew nudity was frowned upon by censors, we went ahead with the script and the shooting,” recalls Santosh.
“Nobody gives you freedom on a platter,” adds Satish. They believed that someone had to take up the issue. Sure enough, members of the local unit of the Central Board of Film Certification objected to the scenes and refused to give a certificate. The two took the legal route and filed a case that went all the way to the Kerala High Court. Finally, justice prevailed in the filmmakers’ favour and the film was cleared without a single cut. “There should be no censoring of a work of art. How can another person force you to alter or mangle a creative piece?” wonders Santosh.
With a smile, they point out that even the word censor is a misnomer for the CBFC, which should be entrusted with certifying a film to make it age-appropriate to the audience. Last year, their film Irutt ran into trouble with the censors when they objected to certain ideas and dialogues in the film. The brothers refused to beep, blur or do the cuts and finally, the regional CBFC office in Hyderabad cleared it without any changes.
- Satish is an engineer with a post-graduation in visual communication. Santosh has a doctorate in film studies from the University of Kerala.
- Chaayam Poosiya Veedu, Ottayal Patha, Maravi, Sunetra and Irutt are their films.
- All their films have been produced by a group of five, including the two siblings.
- Veteran theatre actor K Kaladharan has acted in all their five films.
- All the movies have been shot in and around Thiruvananthapuram to keep down costs. But for the first film, almost all their movies cost around Rs 15 lakh each.
None of their films has been released in theatres but that does not perturb them in the least. “Releasing them in theatres is an extremely expensive affair. Unfortunately, even the government does not seem to support indie films. If only they had screened, at least for short periods, indie films in government-run theatres, it would have been of help to independent filmmakers,” elaborates Santosh.
They agree that OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon and YouTube have come as a blessing for indie filmmakers though they doubt if the same support might be forthcoming since they have also begun buying mainstream films. They give their movies, many a time without any remuneration, to film societies and festival curators who ask for their work.
For the brothers, it is the film that matters and filming, they say, will continue as long as they have something to say.