A scene from the film
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Sajid Yahiya’s third directorial Qalb, which means heart, is an ode to love. “It is an intense love story that traverses the seven stages of love as listed by Sufism such as dilkashi (attraction) to uns (attachment) to mohabbat (love), akidat (reverence), and ibadat (worship) for instance. This is an out and out love story. I would like to add that this film is as much an ode to Alappuzha,” says Sajid. He is also the film’s co-writer with Suhail M Koya.
Sajid, also an actor, made his debut with IDI – Inspector Dawood Ibrahim (2016), with Jayasurya in the lead, his last release was the Manju Warrier-starrer Mohanlal (2018). Though announced in 2019, Qalb was delayed due to various factors. The cast includes Lena and Siddique, besides Ranjith Sajeev, last seen in Mike, debutants Neha Nazneen, Kaarthik Shankar, and Abu Salim. “As you can see there are very few known names, most of the cast comprises newcomers.” Neha Nazneen, Karthik and Abu Salim are, however, content creators with a considerable following on Instagram.
The decision to use names that carry a social media clout was a marketing strategy, Sajid adds. Using social media influencers as actors is a trend that is catching up in Malayalam cinema. “This way, marketing the film also becomes easy since they already have a follower base.”
Sajid Yahya
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The film is about a couple that falls in love despite belonging to different classes, and the challenges they face. “Almost all cities and towns have people who are not considered ‘socially acceptable’. Vattapally is that place in Alappuzha, our hero is from there and the story is about what happens when their paths cross.”
The Alappuzha native wants to show his hometown in ways different from the norm in Malayalam movies. “There is so much more to Alappuzha than what we see in films, more than the Kuttanad backwaters. We have beautiful beaches, and a vibrant community of Anglo-Indians, Cutchi Memons, Gujaratis…I wanted to showcase all that and I hope I have managed to do that. The architecture, the heritage buildings are marvellous. Of the 70-odd day shooting schedule, we spent 65 in Alappuzha!”
Qalb has 20 songs which, he confesses, is a huge number for a movie made today. Since they wanted the mood and feel of the songs to be different, two composers — Vimal Nazar and Nihal Sadiq — were used to create the music. “In most recent movies, songs are a sort of background score, and the actors aren’t ‘singing’ in the film. In Qalb, the characters ‘sing’. In my opinion, that’s one way for songs to have more recall.”
Qalb is playing in theatres.