‘Odessa’ Sathyan, who died of cancer at the age of 57 here on Tuesday, was committed to cinema and social activism.
He would be more remembered for his association with Amma Ariyan , an iconic film directed John Abraham in 1986. He joined the movement started by John called Odessa Collective, which raised funds to make Amma Ariyan from the general public. It was a revolutionary way of making films, as the director and his friends produced and exhibited their film without conventional producers or distributors.
Sathyan became part of Odessa after appearing in a scene in the film. “He acted as the man who teaches karate and those sequences were shot at Iringappara, Vatakara, his hometown,” recalled Joy Mathew, who was the protagonist in Amma Ariyan .
“Then he became one of us and he was with Odessa even after everyone left. Eventually Sathyan became Odessa.”
Venu, who won the National Award for the best cinematographer for his work in Amma Ariyan , said Sathyan had played a key role in taking the film to the people.
Sathyan also directed a few documentaries, the notable among them were on poet A. Ayyappan and police constable P. Ramachandran Nair whose revelation about his role in the murder of Naxalite Varghese stunned the State in 1998, nearly three decades after the incident.
Sathyan himself was part of the movement and he was the Kozhikode district secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).
