KOCHI: Artist, cinematographer, traveller and farmer, Binu Bhaskar has added another feather to his hat with his debut directorial venture, ‘Kottayam’. The off-beat movie is a crime thriller that delves into the themes of violence against women and the displacement of tribes.
Conceptualised in 2015, the film is all set to release on January 17. Made under the banner of Nitevox, Bhaskar’s own production house established in 2011, the idea for ‘Kottayam’ struck Bhaskar after he came back to India from abroad and observed vast changes.
Like himself, he found that many Indians were migrating from their homelands in search of livelihood.
The movie draws a parallel between migration and displacement of tribals due to rampant deforestation.
Kottayam has turned into a land replete with rubber plantations and spice crops by overriding the forest. The film analyses the difficulties faced by forest dwellers. At the heart of the movie, however, is the rape and murder of a woman police officer.
Bhaskar provokes questions in the minds of the audience by portraying an uncomfortable truth.
The movie is an audio-visual delight; the camera pans through the lush beauty of Kottayam, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh. The director has a new team for the cast and crew. The leading role is played by Sangeeth Shivan, a filmmaker from both Malayalam and Hindi film industry.
The music composition, including the breathtaking background score, has been rendered by Albin Dominic. As the story travels to the border of India and China, the songs reflect the shifting mood of the setting and narrative.
The small budget film which was supposed to release in March last year had to be postponed due to censorship issues. The promotion was done in a novel way with an exhibition of stills from the movie displayed at Dravidia Art Gallery at Fort Kochi. “People are lynched in the name of religion and religion has, for centuries, been portrayed in art. Which is why we decided to come up with an art exhibit for the promotion of the movie,” says Bhaskar.