A young bride enters a strange house in Kanhirangat, a land where superstition and sorcery flourished with lush paddy fields and lush forests, set in the hills beyond the misty Illimala. An enigmatic, conservative village where the boundaries between fact and fiction are obscured by belief and tradition. Film Producer Nirmal Sahdev miss Somewhere in northern Kerala is set in this dreamy, evocative place.
Filmmaker and filmmaker new film miss inspired by a story of Vadakkan Aithiyamala (A series of old legends from North Kerala). “A young girl is imprisoned behind the walls of a feudal, conservative house. Through her window, she longs to see a young man wandering through the woods and fields. Taking it as the original, I developed a story that has nuances of the original story with elements of fantasy, horror and drama,” explains Nirmal, who has written the screenplay along with Fazal Hameed.
Film Director Nirmal Sahdev | photo credit: special arrangement
Nirmal is confident that the freshness of the plot and the emotional journey of the characters will captivate the audience. Behind the spectacular sets with award-winning art director Gokuldas and Jake Bejoy in the music, miss It has been shot by budding cinematographer Abraham Joseph.
Nirmal claims that the story is complemented by the film’s visuals and soundscape. “Even the colors were chosen from the color palette created for the film,” says the director.
Nirmal Sahdev’s Shine Tom Chacko miss
, photo credit: special arrangement
Apart from Kumari, essayed by Aishwarya Lakshmi, the film stars Surbhi Lakshmi, Shruti Menon, Shine Tom Chacko, Swasika Vijay and Tanvi Ram. “The female-centric film is driven by Kumari. All my films have strong female characters and Kumari is no different. Here, not one but five women have important roles and each has its own performance space. Same is the case with Shine who plays an important role,” says Nirmal.
female centric story
In missAll women handle situations differently, each of them displaying different aspects of a woman’s personality. Nirmal believes that Surbhi’s action came as an eye-opener. “I have learned a lot from my cast. I hope the journey was symbiotic,” he says.
According to the director, discussions were going on regarding the title of the film. Nirmal thought it should be miss Or any other title that includes a strange world of characters.
Nirmal believes that a narrative should evolve with the development of a central character and decided to go with miss, He says the reason the story is wired is because the audience feels connected to the character’s journey. In Ranmi, he traveled with Adi, the hero played by Prithviraj. However, Kanhirangat is far from Detroit’s underbelly, whose background Ranam, Nirmal’s first film in Malayalam.
Nirmal says that the audience should be able to see the evolution of the characters. “It is the development of the characters of Kumari and Shine that matters and we had to make their struggle look real and relate to the people. Our challenge then is to add the humanistic element: emotions. Then everything else is fine.”
Admitting that the film’s subject matter is a new genre for him, he says it is a new place for many viewers as well.
challenge for directors
We haven’t found any such film after Santosh Sivan. anandbhadram, Such subjects require fine description and creative visualization, and the kind of performance that is in focus is extremely difficult to achieve. Many people prefer to stay away from such films as it is difficult to pull off such a story.”
To take a peek into the world of Kumari, Nirmal ropes in Prithviraj to star in a captivating teaser that gives a glimpse of the film’s backdrop. Though Prithviraj is not in the cast, the viral teaser has sparked interest in the world of Kumari.
At a time when there is so much focus on the real in ‘Reel Life’, Nirmal aims to deliver a dramatic, larger-than-life experience for the audience.
“What attracted me was the challenge of a director to imagine such a world. At the end of my career, I wish there was something different in all my films. The way I like to work is work that challenges me every day. miss It was very challenging. And I was producing it too!”