‘Shooting a lockdown story post pandemic was a challenge’

CHENAI: The team of award-winning Malayalam movie Njaan Ippo Entha Cheyya dropped by our office ahead of its release on the OTT platform Saina Play on Friday. The director-producer of the film, Vijay Menon along with his lead cast, Deepa Thomas and Abhimanyu Gautham, co-writer Smrithi Amarendran and cinematographer Arunmani Palani gave us insights into the story that takes place during the lockdown. “Obviously we shot it after the lockdown as it has to resemble the 2020-21 timeline and all important events that we witnessed in news channels have to be in the right chronological order. Also, to an extent, we were on the safer side because the entire story predominantly takes place inside a house,” says filmmaker Vijay Menon. Smrithi adds to his point and tells us about how the story is a projection of various emotions that takes place between two people inside the house. “It will have a lot of emotions running through the story. It is about two individuals and what they go through when they have to share their living space due to the pandemic. As Vijay and I are partners in our ad company, we were on the same page from the initial stages of the project, and we knew what the audience wanted when it came to writing and delivering the output. Njaan Ippo Entha Cheyya will certainly amuse the audience,” she adds.

However, Deepa and Abhimanyu still have their characters in their subconscious and it is evident when Abhi says, “It was challenging for me. Before coming into this project, I was a camera-conscious person and Vijay sir helped me tread the baby steps of acting easily. When I completed the film I was convinced with myself as an actor.” Deepa is excited and nervous as the movie is all set to release in a couple of days. “Imagine that it will be only us that the audience will have to see for over 100 minutes. I was initially skeptical if I would be able to pull it off. However, when people came and appreciated our performances after the film’s preview, I was relieved and I could say that this comes to me as a blessing,” she smiles.

Cinematographer Arun joins the conversation and says that he was equally excited even when Vijay told him the script. “I had very little space to play around with. Imagine having two characters and to capture their emotions. We did everything we could to make the best of the resources we had. Even the tiniest of props you see in the film is a character in it and has a story to tell us,” he concludes.