Being an independent filmmaker in the Malayalam film industry is no mean task.
Acclaimed filmmaker Sidartha Siva has just learnt it the hard way. After hopes of securing an extended theatrical run for his movie, Ain , were dashed, the disillusioned filmmaker hit social networking site Facebook to pour out his mind. “ Ain is making a retreat from cinemas. On the one side, people are not walking into cinema halls. Puli [Tamil film] is making its way in from the other side. Puli caught Ain in theatres in Thrissur and Kozhikode,” his post read.
Sidartha represents a growing tribe of bold filmmakers struggling to bag a theatrical run for their movies. Their films either get drowned in the clichéd claims of ‘poor initial pull’ and ‘lack of star quotient’, or get steamrolled by films of big banners.
Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s Oraalppokkam reached cinemas on Friday after overcoming several hurdles. “The initial response from the audience was encouraging,” said the award-winning director.
Swimming against the current they may be, but Sidartha and Sanal are not ready to give up. “The theatre collections for Ain may not be even half the money I spent for its release. But that should be no reason to deny people who worked in it a chance to showcase their talents before the widest possible audience,” said Sidartha.
Poor projectors
Washed out images, blurred edges, sound system going off in the middle of a conversation — the issues that have made watching movies in theatres a pain have been solved to some extent, with many theatre owners deciding to revamp the run down cinemas. But, even now, many ‘A’ class releasing centres continue to be plagued by these issues.
Cinematographer Jomon T. John realised this much to his disappointment on a recent visit to a theatre to catch his latest work Ennu Ninte Moideen . Apparently, he could not recognise many of the frames he shot, thanks to the bleached out images projected at the theatre. He voiced his displeasure at the fact that the lack of standards in projection in many centres has prevented the films from viewed in the way it was intended to be, by the crew behind it.
G. Krishnakumar
and S.R. Praveen
