KOCHI: Veeram (valour), the multilingual period film directed by Jayaraj starring Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor in the lead, will be premiered at the opening night of the film festival ahead of the eighth BRICS summit in New Delhi on Friday.
Set in the 13th Century Kerala, the film, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, follows the trail of the tragic hero Chandu, the legendary Kalarippayattu warrior from the Vadakkanpattu of Northern Kerala.
"Chandu, like Shakespeare's Macbeth, meets a tragic end as an outcome of his betrayal. The story revolves around the protagonist's greed, wherein the path is strewn with love, lust, treachery and deceit," said six-time National Award-winning director Jayaraj. It is also the fifth in the Jayaraj's Navarasa series and his third adaptation of Shakespeare plays after 'Othello' (Kaliyattam) and 'Antony and Cleopatra' (Kannaki) in Malayalam.
The big budget film produced by two Doha-based Indian expatriates, Chandramohan D Pillai and Pradeep Rajan, under the banner of Chandrakala Arts, has been shot in three languages - English, Hindi and Malayalam. "We have brought on board four renowned Hollywood technicians to helm the action, make-up, music and colouring facets of the film," said Chandramohan.
The action choreography was done by Allan Poppleton, Trefor Proud was make-up artist, music was composed by Jeff Rona, while colour grading was supervised by Jeff Olm. Veteran cameraman S Kumar cranked the camera while the youngster Appu N Bhattathiri edited the movie.
In five days, 20 movies from BRICS -a grouping of five large emerging economies -Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will be showcased in a competition section to be judged by a five-member panel and will close on September 6 with the Chinese movie Skiptrace starring Jackie Chan.
"I am very excited that we are premiering at the first BRICS Film Festival. We have put a lot of effort into making this film. I am really looking forward to seeing how the audience reacts to it," said Kunal, the protagonist.
"I am happy and proud to be presenting the first screening of my movie, which is an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth," added Jayaraj.
The songless film was mostly shot in Thiruvananthapuram, some portions were shot in Ajanta and Ellora Caves in Aurangabad, Maharashtra and in Agra, Uttar Pradesh.