Director VA Shrikumar’s next film in the pipeline is the Bollywood flick Mission Konkan. The film will have a Malayalam actor playing the lead role. Mission Konkan will be based on the Mappila Khalasis tales. Mappila Khalasis are the traditional uru (big vessels) makers in the Malabar region. The film will revolve on the Khalasis, who thwarted the efforts of the enemy countries trying to breakdown India’s unity and scientific advancement.
Speaking about the film, Shrikumar told in an interview to the Times of India, “The film will have its hero from Malayalam. It is shot mainly in Hindi as the film tells a pan-Indian story. Mappila Khalasis have been in many missions across the country. I have been working on this project for the past five months and at the moment, we are researching a lot more into the subject. The film will go on floors in December.”
An action entertainer, the film’s stunt choreography will be supervised by well-known Hollywood technicians. The locations earmarked for the making of Mission Konkan include Ratnagiri, Goa, Delhi, Beypore, Kozhikode and Palakkad.
TD Ramakrishnan is penning the film and the team, which is finalising on the cast and crew, will be making an announcement soon. While the plan is to make Mission Konkan, set in the backdrop of the Konkan Railways, in Hindi, it will also be released in all the south Indian languages.
VA Shrikumar Menon, an acclaimed ad filmmaker, directed his debut feature film Odiyan with Mohanlal and Manju Warrier playing the lead roles.
It had Prakash Raj playing a pivotal role and he shared screen space with Mohanlal after nearly two decades. The last time they worked together was in the Mani Ratnam directorial Iruvar.
Shrikumar was later caught up in a controversy regarding his film Randamoozham, planned with Mohanlal, based on the book by the same name written by Jnanpith award winning writer MT Vasudevan Nair. When the film failed to take off four years after the contract was signed, MT withdrew his script. The director had gone to court requesting for an arbitrator in the case but this was rejected.
(Content provided by Digital Native)