Sanal Kumar Sasidharan has multi-fold reasons to celebrate the announcement of the Kerala State Film Awards 2019. The indie director of the to-be-released film Chola bagged four awards, including the ones for the best male and female actors. He also won a special jury award for direction and one for sound designing.
So he is not disappointed, “not in the least”, about missing the award for the best director. “I have been an outspoken critic of some of the decisions of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy and so I did not think I would get any award at all. But I was sure that my film Chola and the superb work of my cast and crew could not be ignored by the jury,” says Sanal.
And what is Chola about? “It is a road movie that is a thriller. As with many of my films, it is about a relevant theme that will strike a chord with viewers today and requires intense viewing,” says Sanal. He adds that the film is about a school girl Janaki, her boy friend Sasi and his mentor Varghese who go on a journey. “What happens when a young woman’s innocence is shaken? It is about her ordeal and what she experiences is the crux of the film. The film centres on the feminist identity,” adds the director.
Nimisha Sajayan, Joju George and Akhil play the three lead characters. A trailer of the film that was released soon after the announcement of the awards proved to be a cliff hanger that hints at the premise of the film.
Sanal Kumar Sasidharan
Written by Sanal and novelist KV Manikandan, the film’s script was done sometime ago and “before we took it up for shooting, we had to rework it substantially,” says the maverick director, who has been making waves on the international circuit with his narratives and thematic content.
In the meantime, his previous film Unmadiyude Maranam has still not been released in cinemas although it has been screened at several international fetes.
“It might be perceived as anti-national in the present circumstances and the powers-that-be may not be happy with some of the situations in the film. The censors might insist on several cuts and since it has been made mandatory for films to be censored even to be screened at film festivals in India, Unmadiyude Maranam has not been screened in India at all. But I would like the film to have a theatrical release because it is a film of our times. However, I am at a loss to figure out how to make it palatable for the censors!”
