KOCHI: Winding up a film in 15 days may not be novel anymore but shooting two movies, within the same location, in that time frame is! That’s what is special about director Radhakrishnan R K’s feature films, Onnambhagom and Randayirathi Payinezhile (2017) Oru Kinavu.
The fashion-designer turned director says both the films are politically themed and deals with violence. “’Onnambhagom’ is based on a real-life incident.
We have kept this movie as raw and realistic as possible, similar to the lines of ‘Angamaly Diaries’. When we released the trailer, we did not edit any of the sequences, because we wanted people to know what the movie was all about,” he said. “Though people were hesitant to soak up the movie initially, the trailer, especially the reggae song ‘Chaayakada’ went viral,’
So, what made him decide to do two movies in one go?
“I had both the scripts ready. Though I had initially thought of approaching other seasoned directors, in the end, I decided to make both the movies because it was practically easier. Also, since the actors were all new faces, it was easy to convince them to do the second movie at the same time,” said Radhakrishnan. But there were challenges.
“We had to ensure that we didn’t zoom in on the same houses or places in Ottappalam because that would be repetitive. So, we had to find new houses,” he said. Chief associate director Jishnu A Unni says the films were made on a limited budget of Rs 4 lakh. “It took a fortnight. However, this meant we had to work continuously throughout the day and night,” he said.
In ‘Randayirathi Pathinezhile Kinavuwhich, theatre artist Rajalakshmi Amma plays the protagonist. The song was released recently. Vishnu Vijayaraghan has handled the camera. Gopu Sadanandan, Ashish Venpala Thomas, and Anand Narayanan composed the Chayakada song., while Sreerag Narayanan is the editor.