Exclusive! Fahadh’s Malayankunju is a relevant survival thriller about a man caught in a landslide: Sajimon

If all goes according to plan, Fahadh Faasil will have his first Malayalam theatrical release in two years with the survival thriller Malayankunju, which is scheduled to hit cinema halls in February. The movie marks the directorial debut of Sajimon Prabhakar and is scripted by C U Soon and Malik director Mahesh Narayanan.

While the movie was shot last year, it was planned much before the pandemic, Sajimon tells OTTplay. In fact, the duo was initially supposed to team up for an entertainer that was scripted by Rafi. “I first worked with Fahadh in Netholi Oru Cheriya Meenala. Post that we had worked together in Take Off and Carbon, in which I had worked as an associate director. Malayankunju organically fell into place, after C U Soon,” says the filmmaker.

On the upcoming movie, he explains, “The film is about a man getting trapped. It is a survival thriller that everyone can relate to. It’s about the landslides in the hilly terrains. So, shooting the movie too had its challenges.”

The film, which was shot in Erattupetta and Mundakkayam, had a start-stop schedule owing to the pandemic and an injury that Fahadh had sustained while filming. “We had begun the shoot in January 2020 and were planning to wrap it up by March, and release the movie soon after that. But Fahadh suffered an injury the very first day of the second schedule. By the time he had recovered, there was another lockdown. Then he got busy with his Telugu and Tamil projects - Pushpa and Vikram,” says the director.

Ask him about Fahadh’s character in the film and the director says, “He plays a rural youth who repairs electronics. His character was modelled on people we knew. During the discussions, Mahesh, Fahadh and myself exchanged information of how certain people behaved and that’s how the character evolved.”

Apart from Fahadh, the film also has Rajisha Vijayan, Jaffer Idukki, Indrans and a host of actors with a theatre background. With COVID-19 cases once again surging in Kerala, ask him about the release plans of the movie and Sajimon says, “We haven’t confirmed the release date yet. As of now, the plan is to release it in theatres.”

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