Iravilum Pakalilum Odiyan, a documentary that investigates the myth about the Odiyan community in north Kerala region, will premiere at the International Film Festival of India in Goa on November 23. The trailer of this documentary was released by the Malayalam superstar Mohanlal recently on his social media page.
The myth about the Odiyan community is that they can take animal forms and the documentary sets to explore it. Iravilum Pakalilum Odiyan, directed by Novin Vasudev, has been shot in the forests of Nilambur, Kashi and Varanasi. An interesting feature about the film is that it will include interviews of actor Manju Warrier, writer E Kannankutty and members of the Odiyan community. The documentary also features Mohanlal and in the trailer you can hear him say, “Odiyan is a blend of imagination and reality. Like a feeling you get in some evenings when you can't say if it's day or night.”
It may be recalled that Mohanlal played the lead role in the feature film Odiyan. The film was based on the Kerala folklore about men from the Odiyan community having extraordinary abilities that enable them to assume animal form easily. Mohanlal was seen as Manikyan, a master in Odividya and his character aged from 35 to 65 years. Mohanlal was seen in different avatars in this film and also shed about 15 kilos of weight to fit into the role.
It was a high budget movie bankrolled by Antony Perumbavoor under his banner Aashirvad Cinemas. The film was directed by ad filmmaker VA Shrikumar Menon who marked his debut as a director of feature films in the industry. The film was scripted by the National Award winner K Hari Krishnan.
Manju Warrier played the female lead in this film and the rest of the cast included Innocent, Siddique, Manoj Joshi, Nandhu, Narain, Kailash, Sreejaya Nair, Sana Althaf and Appani Sarath.
(Content provided by Digital Native)