This parallel—or not parallel, but independent— cinema movement is happening everywhere in India, and slowly a lot of people are joining. I’ve been revisiting it over the last 10 years, and it was a revelation for me every time. As a subscriber, you are not only a beneficiary of our work but also its enabler. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan was born in Perumkadavila village, Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala on 8 April 1977. My work doesn’t define me: Sanal Kumar Sasidharan on ‘Chola’ and taking a break from social media, Subscribe to our First Day First Show newsletter, Coronavirus: All the movies, TV shows and festivals delayed or shut down globally, New on Netflix this week: ‘AK vs AK’, ‘The Midnight Sky’ and more, New on Amazon Prime this week: ‘Unpaused’, ‘The Grand Tour’ Season 4 and more, The science behind why a cricket ball swings | The Hindu In Focus Podcast, Study traces flood-driven wildlife migration in Kaziranga. He has become the face of independent cinema in Malayalam with five … No, I had an idea of how I wanted to make this film. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan is a Film Director known for his vivid work in the Malayalam industry. Sometimes, I’m compelled to explain what I intended, when the audience comes up with a reading that is totally against the idea. But why is there no physical violence in the narrative part of the film? If you’re talking to a stranger, there’s a violence in that. That’s why, in the entire movie, you don’t see any real violence, even though the violence is there. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan is an independent film director from the South Indian state of Kerala. It was created by men for benefits. What follows is a protracted drama of dreadful anticipation as Durga and Kabeer attempt repeatedly and futilely to escape the two men, encountering corrupt cops and menacing, meddling strangers on the way. But the tag ‘independent’ filmmaker does not bother him any more. How did you come up with the music for the film? Sanal Kumar Sasidharan gives us a really disturbing film, told through some great performances – Joju George especially, and Nimisha Sajayan too – and an eerie presentation. And if somebody opposes a film, then the government says it will cause problems, so you better don’t make it. We are living inside violence. I want to use the camera to create a mood. I filter what they contribute, and if something is good, I use it. You can’t call it violence, it’s pure sacrifice. I had no idea how to make a film and how to find a producer. I wanted to put that contradiction in the beginning, in the title itself. On the one hand we worship, on the other hand we gang-rape. There should be no influence or concern that should cause me to make a change. The documentary shots that bookend the film, depicting the Garudan Thookam festival in Kerala, feature graphic shots of men inserting spikes into their bodies and walking on burning coals. His father Sasidharan and his mother Sarojam gave birth to him in the village of Perumkadavila in Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala. I never prepare my actors. Because this graphic violence that we see nowadays in film—cutting, stabbing, blood coming out, screaming—this kind of violence is very rare in our society. This is not the first time Sanal Kumar Sasidharan dealing with the great Himalayas, in fact, his first full-length feature film Oraalppokkam had some majority of the portion shot at the Mountain Ranges. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, the 40-year-old Malayalam filmmaker is no Marxist, nor does he have any ‘jihadi’ connection. You’ve spoken about how central gender is to this film. It’s beautiful when it’s calm and violent when there’s a surge. - Nisha's husband emotional interview! We need to develop the taste for such movies, and we need to reach out to people. But the problem is that we still have no money to advertise or to reach out to people. Devika Girish Aesthetically, I was very impressed with Krzysztof Kieślowski. Sanam's deadly combination with this has everyone in splits - Latest BB video here! My sales agent gave me a warning saying there won’t be more than 100 people. When I was studying, I followed this John Abraham style of filmmaking a lot. I told him that we needed to make something like this, but purely modern. I’m sure many people have drawn parallels between your society and John Abraham’s Odessa Collective. Everyone is trying to dominate others. I read books about John Abraham, about his parallel way of filmmaking and his philosophy of the “people’s cinema.” But I wasn’t following all this practically. That’s why I didn’t want to show actual violence. What is your approach to filming violence? “The movie has unique content. In that sense, water is a metaphor for life. But knowingly or unknowingly, I keep revisiting these themes in my movies. Sanal unabashedly admits what other filmmakers might find it unrealistic, “My characters are a reflection of me. The government made the submission on a petition filed by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan seeking a CBI probe in the mysterious death of his cousin … I wanted to bridge the gap between real life and fiction. Your support for our journalism is invaluable. Because ultimately the film will speak what I want it to speak. To enable wide dissemination of news that is in public interest, we have increased the number of articles that can be read free, and extended free trial periods. By But as a road movie, set in the dead of the night, it becomes the perfect premise for a thriller. In an interview … Kerala filmmaker Sanal Kumar Sasidharan alleged foul play over the death of his relative, Sandhya, a 40 year-old resident of Thiruvananthapuram. It worked very smoothly. What made you come up with this particular title? And people have an already set taste and mindset. Water is one of the powerful forces of Nature. His movies do something inwards, but there’s no rational explanation. Here, if you see an open landscape, you’ll be frightened. We made our own rigs. I read that you even received some threats because of it. The horrors of slavery in America return in Antebellum, an audacious thriller that revives thorny questions of how to portray the past, Susan Sontag, Sweden, 1969; Kino Lorber, DVD & Blu-Ray, More than words: the subtitler of Godard, Assayas, and others talks about the process in this accompaniment to our May-June 2020 Art and Craft article. That’s what created a spark in me when I wrote Ozhivudivasathe Kali. I was fascinated by his Dekalog. I want to see how it happens and then I will shape it a little bit. tells SC talks on for another chance to aspirants, Hathras victim was gang-raped, murdered: CBI, Himanshi Khurana, Thaman S, Armaan Malik top Twitter music charts for 2020, Dhanush joins cast of Russo brothers’ ‘The Gray Man’, In historic pick, Biden taps Deb Haaland as interior secretary, Lewandowski beats Messi and Ronaldo to FIFA Best Player Award, Shackles and ties: On transition period of U.K.'s exit from EU. But if there’s a lady on the street whose name is really Durga, she might be considered a prostitute. But it will happen, eventually. Sexy Durga definitely feels very improvisatory and organic, but it’s also a tightly structured thriller. It’s not just that. If they don’t consider it as art, then it’s very strange. It’s very organic and I love to watch it happen. The music director of the film, Basil Joseph, has worked with me on my last two films. So I think about how I will shoot the movie and what its structure will be like way before we start shooting. Yes, survival is also equally important. His 40-year-old kin died recently. It’s kind of like… shaping them in acting. At one point in the film, I successfully merged the two. His 40-year-old kin died recently. The Emraan Hashmi-led Harami, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s new film A’hr and Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Bittersweet are among the seven Indian titles that have been selected for … Excerpts: The Kazhcha film festival started in the spirit of protest and rebellion. Yeah, because people in this culture think Durga can only be a goddess. The plan changes a lot and I’m very happy with that. As we fight disinformation and misinformation, and keep apace with the happenings, we need to commit greater resources to news gathering operations. You can always see the closeness of these human beings, their faces, and their fear. Then in 2015, we made another crowdfunded feature, Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani. I have a complete idea of the film from the beginning, even though I have a lot of lacunae which I leave for them to fill in. Bollywood Interview; Interviews; There Will Be No Self-Censoring: Director Of S Durga. With his third feature, Sexy Durga, Sasidharan reflects Indian independent cinema’s emerging feminist moment, urgent more than ever at a time when films like Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha are being denied release in the country for being too “lady-oriented.” Sasidharan’s stringent psycho-thriller joins recent releases like Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses (2015) and Leena Yadav’s Parched (2015) in investigating the contradictions of Indian patriarchy that make women the subjects of both worship and vilification. Encountering Durgas on the street whose name is really Durga, she might considered... M not crowdfunding my own films I make no bones about it or used! 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