Biju Menon, Suraj Venjaramoodu team up for Maradona director Vishnu Narayanan’s next

Malayalam actors Biju Menon and Suraj Venjaramoodu will be teaming up for Maradona director Vishnu Narayanan’s sophomore venture, which went on floors in Kochi on Monday. The movie, which is scripted by Rajesh Gopinathan, also has Lijomol Jose and Shruthi Ramachandran as part of its cast.

The movie, which is produced by director Anoop Kannan, kicked off its shoot in Kakkanad, Kochi, with a pooja function that was attended by directors Dileesh Pothan and Sidharth Bharathan. Rajesh, who had earlier written Dulquer Salmaan’s Kali and Soubin Shahir’s Djinn, was also in attendance with its lead actors. The movie also has Sudhi Koppa in a pivotal role.

Sushin Shyam has been roped in as the composer of the film, which has Manesh Madhavan as its cinematographer and Saiju Sreedharan as its editor. The shoot of the yet-to-be-titled movie is expected to go on for 50 days with Ernakulam and Thrissur being the main locations.

Meanwhile, Biju Menon, whose previous film was Naalaam Mura, has Saheed Arafath’s Thankam set for release. The actor plays a jewellery worker in the crime drama, which is scripted by Syam Pushkaran and also stars Vineeth Sreenivasan, Aparna Balamurali and Girish Kulkarni.

The actor, who won the National Film Award last year for his performance in Ayyappanum Koshiyum, said in a recent press meet ahead of Thankam’s release that working with the team of Syam Pushkaran and Saheed Arafath was a learning experience for him as he had always wished to be part of a film made by the team of Bhavana Studios.

Thankam is set to release in theatres on January 26 and will clash with Mohanlal’s Alone, which is a pandemic thriller, helmed by Shaji Kailas. The latter is a single-actor movie, but also features voices of Prithviraj Sukumaran and Manju Warrier, who play characters that make their presence felt through phone calls and the protagonist’s thoughts.