Exclusive! Anurag Kashyap became part of Paka through Adoor sir’s recommendation: Nithin Lukose

It’s always a thing of joy for a debutant director to have his film screened at a premier film festival. For Nithin Lukose, who made his directorial debut with Paka, the joy is triple as the movie went on to be adjudged the Best Film at Work-in-Progress Lab of NFDC’s Film Bazaar, got Anurag Kashyap to take note and be part of it, and is now one of the only two Indian movies to be selected for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). 

Paka, which is titled River of Blood in English, is again a rooted-to-reality tale from the Malayalam film industry; the film is set in a village of Wayanad and traces its history.

Talking to OTTplay, Nithin, who has worked as a sound designer in movies such as Thithi, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar and Ambili, says, “It’s based on the stories that my grandmother told me about their migration to Wayanad and the fights that ensued between the people. In the movie too, we talk about the family feuds and disputes. More than the story, what attracted me to make Paka was the land and its people.”

Once he zeroed in on the idea, Nithin says that he began scripting the film around 2018-19. “That was also the time I had worked as a sound designer in the Telugu movie Mallesham, which was directed by Raj R. So, when I discussed the theme with him, he liked it and said we could do it as a small movie,” he says. 

Nithin quickly put together a team comprising FTII mates including cinematographer Srikanth Kabothu, editor Arunima Shankar and a few graduates from Bangalore Film School. “We then brought all these sophisticated equipment to a village in Wayanad and began shooting the movie,” says Nithin. 

The filmmaker, who is also from Wayanad, says that most of the shoot was in neighbouring places with real people from the areas. “We trained them in acting through a two-month-long workshop,” he says. Apart from those in the village, Basil Paulose, Vinitha Koshy and Abhilash Nair are the other actors who are part of the cast. 

On how Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap joined as co-producer, Nithin says, “After shooting the movie, I showed the first cut to director Adoor Gopalakrishnan sir. Anurag watched the movie based on his recommendation. He must have thought that Paka has potential and that’s why he said he wanted to be part of it.” Incidentally, Anurag had also co-produced the Malayalam film Moothon, which was directed by Geetu Mohandas and had premiered at TIFF in 2019. 

Even before Anurag came onboard, the film was selected as one among the five movies in the Work-in-Progress Lab of National Film Development Corporation’s Film Bazaar and went on to win its Best Film award last year. “Since then, it was presented as Film Bazaar’s movie and considering that it only selects five movies, all of them are screened at big film festivals. This also helps in people taking the film seriously. I am sure Anurag’s name attached to the film also helped us,” he says, on the movie being screened at TIFF’s Discovery section that showcases the debut or sophomore films of directors. 

Preferring to keep the focus on the movie rather than its laurels or personalities, Nithin says, “I want to experiment in different genres. Even though Paka is an independent film, it’s not an arthouse experiment. It has a proper narrative with emotions. The technical team has also handled it with discipline. The movie has violence, but we haven’t shown anything explicitly and I think this subtle treatment is what has worked in the movie’s favour.”

Ask him about his next projects and the filmmaker says that he is currently working on a few scripts and he says, “It takes me at least a year to finish a script because I want to properly conceive a movie before shooting it. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work.” 

Like most of the global film festivals this year, TIFF 2021, which will run from September 9 to 18, will also be held in hybrid format with both in-person and digital screenings. Ritwik Pareek’s Dug Dug is the other entry from India that will also be screened in the Discovery section.