His short film ‘Marana Simhasanam’ won the prestigious award Came’ra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999 and another movie ‘Tragedy of an Indian Farmer’ won him a National Award in 1993. Murali Nair, who was trained at the Xavier de Communication in Mumbai believes cinema is always an art form, a medium to express myself.
Murali and his wife Preeya Nair are precisely doing the same to promote film-making. His digital-film making course for both adults and children at Corner House Art Gallery in the city teaches almost every aspect of digital film-making which include handling the camera, technicalities of shooting, audio-video recording and editing.
Talking about the problems being faced by the independent film-making in India, the filmmaker says, “There is a market for these films and people are even interested in watching these movies, but the problem lies in distribution. In India it is very difficult to get financiers for art movies.”
Commenting on the platforms available for aspiring film-makers in India, Nair says, “We are very much backward when compared to the global scenario and we need to get support from the people in power, as that is when there will be recognition for our work.”
His movie, ‘Marana Simhasanam’ is a story about a poor farmer who after a lot of unusual events, becomes the first person to be executed on a death throne, an American discovery.
The Left party in Kerela criticized the movie and commenting on it, he said, “I am used to these criticisms from a lot of people and my movie was not appreciated by the Left there, but the response at Cannes was immense.”
When asked about the choice of language for his movies, he said, “Language is never a barrier to make movies. Most of my movies are the way I wanted them to be with a strong message, because that is why I make movies. I leave it to the audience to derive the message. My movies are not aimed at every section of the society.”