Having won the outstanding achievement in International feature film making at the Williamsburg Film Festival in New York earlier this year, Unni Vijayan is now all set to release his first full length feature film, Lessons in Forgetting, which was screened at the 5th BIFFES fest.
According to Unni, he was prompted to take up the subject only because of the gender focus. “This film is quite connected to Bangalore as the Lessons... is based on acclaimed author Anita Nair’s novel which bears the same name. I had read Anita’s Mistress, which I thought was quite interesting. But I was more attracted to the other book, which she asked me to read. That’s how this film happened,” he explained.
According to Anita Nair, the cinema platform demands are really different than book writing. “Films are bound by time, which is not the case with a novel as we can write as many pages as we want. But while making a film, a lot of things are taken out,” said the author, who has also attempted with the screenplay.
Now that the author has got comfortable with her first film, will we see more from Anita? “I was chosen to do this job. Now that I got a hang of it, I would like to go with the flow. I will write and be part of a project only if it excites me,” she said.
The film starring Adil Hussain, Roshini Achreja among others also had Manoviraj Khosla design the attire. The music was rendered by world renowned violinist duo, Ganesh & Kumaresh.