On The Road To Thrill

Sanal Sasidharan on Whether the Screening of His Film at the Venice Festival Will Help the Movie Get Traction in India

- Sukant Deepak

HE has this strange quality of looking at his cinema from a distance. No, not distracted, but it seems that he is constantly thinking about the next movie brewing in his mind. As his latest, Chola (Shadow of Water) hits Venice Film festival (August 28-September 7), the filmmaker who made national headlines for the controversy surrounding his movie S Durga,insists that though it is always pleasant to get noticed, he isn’t really keeping his hopes too high.

“Films like these are not very commercially viable, and generally restricted to the film festival circuit. Being selected for a major festival does not really guaranteed commercial release here. Of course, the acclaim warms you.”

A fast-paced drama in which two teens run away to the city, where their nightmares begin, in Cola, Sasidharan, for the first time has casted well-recognised faces like Joju George and Nimisha Sajayan.The latter walked away with the Best Actress trophy at Kerala State Film Award for her brilliant portrayal.

Talk to the director about the fact that Cola, like