777 Charlie was told more from a human perspective but Valatty is entirely from dogs’ POV: Devan | Exclusive

While it’s been over two and half years since Devan announced his debut directorial Valatty – a love story featuring dogs, the reception of its motion poster a few days ago proves that the audience are still very much excited about the movie.

The filmmaker and scriptwriter, who has been working for over three and half years on the project that is touted to be the first film in the country to tell its story through canines, tells us that the team is currently in the final stage of the post production.

The protagonists, villain and sidekicks in the film are all dogs with a Golden Retriever named Tomy and a Cocker Spaniel named Amalu essays the leads. Ask him if shooting with the dogs took more time than its pre-production and post-production works and the filmmaker tells us, “On the contrary, the pre-production and post-production were the most time-consuming as both phases took us about one and half years each. The shoot didn’t take us a lot of time. The film needed some preparation to shoot and also the post-production, because it’s an experimental movie and no one has made such a movie yet, we had to learn everything by doing.”

The movie’s shoot, which was in Kollam and Kottayam, had concluded one and a half years ago and Valatty is currently expected to hit theatres in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi during summer 2023.

The previous pan-Indian film with a dog as a central character that got a rousing reception was Rakshit Shetty’s 777 Charlie. Did that also give a lot of confidence to the makers of Valatty? “Absolutely,” says the director. “Films about dogs and pets, in general, aren’t explored in our industry. 777 Charlie was more from a human’s perspective but Valatty is entirely from dogs’ perspectives. That said, it was great to see a film that also had an animal at its core receive that kind of reception.”

The movie will also feature the voices of prominent actors, who have dubbed for the dogs. “I can’t reveal the names right now. All I can say is that it will be a novel, interesting experience. We will be letting out the other details in the coming weeks,” says the filmmaker.