IT’S a proud moment for Malayalam bloggers. Five youngsters from blogosphere have raised the status of blogs to that of a creative platform by coming up with the first-of-its-kind video feature based on a blog story.
The film, titled ‘Parole’, will have its first screening at Kalabhavan on Wednesday, celebrating the success story of the unity of a group of bloggers.
A quick rewind: Manikantan, one of the first-generation Malayalam bloggers (he is only 33) had published a story in his blog ‘Sankuchithan’, almost three years ago. He also posted the screenplay of the story under the title ‘Parole’, which has now been captured on video by Sanal Sasidharan, another Malayalam blogger.
Naturally, Mani and Sanal had their first meeting in the blog world. To be precise, through Sanal’s blog ‘Sanathanan’.
Sanal has had a brief stint with direction in 2001 when he and a group of youngsters based in Neyyattinkara had established Kazhcha Chalachitravedi out of their love for cinema. The group had then produced a video film ‘Wonder World’, which Sanal had posted in his blog and caught Manikantan’s eye. The rest will soon be history.
``We decided to make the screenplay into a movie and then everything began falling into place. Since we had this huge world of netizens to support us, what began as a five-member venture grew into a 50-member close-knit group. We didn’t go after mainstream personalities to handle any role in its creation, so the making of the movie was comparatively an easy affair,’’ says Sanal.
The only big name in the crew is that of editor Ajithkumar, who has been associated with film-makers like Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The protagonist is a young boy Kannan, played by Aditya. Of the other two child artists in the film, Kalyani, who plays the role of Ammu, is a blogger’s daughter. Another child artist Abhijit is Sanal’s nephew. Karamana Sudheer (son of Karamana Janardhanan Nair) and Sandhya Ramesh (Amrita TV’s ‘Vanitha Ratnam’ fame) also handle leading roles. Venu Pattambi is the art director of the film.
``We adults can deal with migrant life, but kids are not able to do that easily. In the film, the boy Kannan finds it heart-breaking when he is about to be taken abroad after a long stay in his village,’’ Sanal explains.
The shooting of the 50-minute film took only two months and covered Chathanoor and neighbouring areas. The budget of the film was limited to Rs 2.5 lakh with three of the five-member blogger group pooling in the money. Other than Mani (who is presently in Dubai) and Sanal, Shaji, Dileep and Kumar who belong to the group.
So, what’s next? ``We plan to make a cinema one day. Being bloggers always keeps us connected to a larger section, which is sure to lead us to our dream,’’ Sanal says.
The preview of ‘Parole’ will be held at 10 a.m.
- Express Features