‘Mullaperiyar is in a critical state'

Mariner-turned-director Sohan Roy speaks about ‘Dam999' and why Mullaperiyar is a disaster waiting to happen

Director Sohan Roy on the sets of 'Dam 999'

Uncertainty prevails over the release of Dam 999 in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The 3D film's director, Sohan Roy, was a mariner before he produced documentaries and Dam 999 is his first feature film. He had hoped for a pan-Indian and Middle East release this week, followed by a release in US and Europe in 2012.

Excerpts from an interview:

Can you tell us about the genesis of Dam 999 ?

Dams are the biggest threat for mankind. By 2020 there will be around 4000 outdated large dams across the world. The biggest manmade disaster that occurred so far is the 1975 Banqiao dam disaster in China which claimed over 250,000 lives.

The worst possible manmade disaster is expected if Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala, which was built 116 years back during the British colonial days, breaks. The dam is in a critical state and the expected death toll would be 2.5million lives.

Surprisingly, both Banqiao and Mullaperiyar are of the same capacity. In

Dam 999 , the story revolves around a dam like Mullaperiyar and Banqiao is used as reference.

What do the numbers 999 signify?

Mullaperiyar dam issue is due to a contract of 999 years between Kerala and Tamil Nadu to share its water. In Dam 999 we are trying to show such a dam with a contract of 999 years.

At the same time, the movie is all about number 9. One ‘9' represents Navagrahas. We are trying to establish the navarasa concept through the ‘9' characters in the movie as their static emotions. Also the movie is all about a voyage through the ‘9' seas of lost love.

To establish the navarasas concept we needed 9 actors. We chose actors from various film industries — Rajit Kapoor, Ashish Vidyardhi, Vimala Raman, Linda, Vinay Rai, Jineet and others.

Did you make the film from a mariner's point of view?

If you look from mariner's point of view, it's a mariner's movie. Three characters in this movie are mariners who were close friends in a marine institute and the story starts with the meeting of these three mariners onboard a ship after many years. They return to their home land without knowing the disaster awaiting for them there.

Where did you shoot the film? We had nine locations like Alleppy, Cochin, Munnar, Athirappally, Ootty, Fujairah, Dubai, offshore etc., but the majority of the shoot was done at Ramoji Film City.

The film's script found its way to the Oscar library prior to its release. Did you see such a recognition coming?

It was unexpected. But during the seven days Oscar Qualifying Screening at Los Angeles, many westerners who came for the show had expressed their surprise at the beauty of the script covering so many subjects but with proper inter connection. No one could believe that such a project has come out of India with such a good theme and technical perfection.

Did you train yourself in film direction?

Filmmaking was my passion. After engineering I tried to join the film industry to learn direction. But I couldn't fulfill it that time. Later I took up a diploma in film direction and production from Hollywood and started a global Television channel for shipping industry and started producing many documentaries for the channel. The curtain raiser documentary of Dam 999 has already won 20 international awards.