At 82, K.P. Kumaran continues to champion progressive cinema

Film society federation to conduct week-long festival in honour of K.P. Kumaran from today

K.P. Kumaran

For someone who suddenly decided not to make films any more during his heyday in the late 1980s, K.P. Kumaran is very much active now, at 82. His film on poet Kumaranasan,

Gramavrikshathile Kuyil, was ready for release when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

From Saturday, the Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI) will be organising a week-long online film festival in his honour, showcasing six of his acclaimed works — Athithi, Akashagopuram, Rugmini, Kattile Pattu , Thottam , and M.T. Vasudevan Nair-A Momentous Life in Creativity .

The festival is being organised at a time of raging debates in independent cinema circles, following comments made by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan in a recent interview in which he said that Mr. Kumaran, who shared the screenwriting credits with him for his debut film Swayamvaram, was merely a scribe who penned down the lines dictated to him. The comments had led to much criticism from film buffs as well as critics.

‘Unfit for reply’

Speaking to

The Hindu on the eve of the festival, Mr. Kumaran said that Adoor’s comments did not deserve any reply.

“I am known more for my own films than for Swayamvaram . Adoor has got all the deserved recognition for the film. So, it is unfortunate that he had to make these comments almost 50 years after the film was made. I was working in Life Insurance Corporation of India that time and the script was written at my home every evening after my work, with detailed discussions between us. I only have pity when I hear such comments,” says Mr. Kumaran.

Mr. Kumaran was one of the first filmmakers from the State to win an international award, when his short film The Rock fetched the gold medal at the Expo film festival in Tokyo in 1972. His latest film on Kumaranasan comes more than a decade after he adapted Henrik Ibsen’s play Master Builder as Aakashagopuram .

“I have always had a wish to make a film on Kumaranasan, who has not been given the honour deserving of his contributions. The communal upsurge that was witnessed in Kerala in 2018 and the discussions on social reform movements rekindled that wish in me. For someone who has lived through so many decades, I am sure that a regressive protest movement like what happened in 2018 would not have happened in the 1960s or 70s. Even the ‘vimochana samaram’ had a direct connection to the quest for political power, but this had many other dimensions of caste, patriarchy, and religion,” says Mr. Kumaran.