The much awaited digital release of Moothon (the elder one), directed by Geetu Mohandas, and starring Nivin Pauly in the lead, is set for July 24, Friday. The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2019, will release on the OTT platform ZEE5.
Moothon, set in Lakshadweep and Mumbai, is about a 14-year-old from Lakshadweep who lands up in Mumbai in search of the elder brother. The film is a bilingual drama in Hindi and Malayalam and stars Nivin Pauli as Akbar (the elder brother), Sanjana Dipu, Shashank Arora, Roshan Mathew, Shobitha Dhulipala and others.
The film is Geetu Mohandas’s third outing as a filmmaker and her second full-length feature film. Her second film, Liar’s Dice, won international acclaim and catapulted her to popularity as a reputed filmmaker.
Geetu Mohandas is also the co-scriptwriter of Moothon, and penned the dialogues of the film with Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap, who wrote the Hindi parts. The cinematography for the film was done by Rajeev Ravi.
In September 2019, the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival where it received critical acclaim. It went on to be featured in a few other international film festivals, following which the film had its theatrical release in November 2019.
The film was recently selected for competition at the New York Indian Film Festival between July 24 and August 2. It has been nominated in four categories, namely Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Child Actor.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a lockdown, several films have had a direct release on OTT platforms. Malayalam film Sufiyum Sujatayum, starring Aditi Rao Hydari and Jayasurya was the first Malayalam movie to have a straight OTT release. In Kannada, Law, a legal drama starring Ragini Prajwal in the lead, released earlier this month on Amazon Prime Video.
Penguin starring Keerthy Suresh and Ponmagal Vandhal starring Jyotika in the lead, are two notable Tamil films to have direct OTT release. Although Moothon had a theatrical release, several people who could not catch it in the theatres were awaiting its digital release.
More films are also expected to release directly on OTT platforms now, with movie theatres remaining shut due to the pandemic.