Ashvin Matthew’s directorial debut, 3 Devi, is a ‘feminist survival thriller’

Actor and standup comedian Ashvin Matthew is adding writer, director and producer to his resume, with the Kannada film 3 Devi, which will be in theatres on May 24. A film with no heroes and 3 leading ladies means that Ashvin’s struggle to get his film to theatres has been compounded. No distributor worth his salt wants to touch his film even with a bargepole.

“I am a little stressed because I am releasing the film myself,” he says. Why is he doing a theatrical release then? “OTT platforms will entertain you only after a theatrical release. Right now, I need to sell and make money to do right by my producer and that is very important when I am starting off. What I am finding very encouraging is that I paid for only 35 screens across Karnataka, which was my original deal with Lilac Films. As of yesterday, though, we had 60 theatres, with many exhibitors approaching Lilac Films to play the film. That makes me very happy and it seems that we are doing something right,” says Ashvin.

All about 3 Devi

3 Devi, is a “feminist thriller”, although the actor-filmmaker does not want to call it as such. “A film about heroines in the absence of a hero is what I thought in my head when I conceptualized 3 Devi. It is a survival thriller about three women from different walks of life. Two of them are working on a film, as actor and assistant director, respectively, and then take off from the set on a trip when they got fed up of the patriarchy and misogyny around. Joining them is a third woman, who walks out on her wedding. It’s all fun and laughter till they go on a forest trail and witness something, which forces them to run for their lives,” says Ashvin, adding, “The more they run, they realize this evil is not going to let up, until they fight back.”

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Incidentally, Ashvin was not mean to be a part of the cast of 3 Devi. “I had another actor onboard and we’d even shot for 4 days, but its wasn’t coming across well. Then, during the pandemic, he’d had a back injury and my associate director, who’d been after my life from the beginning to do the role, thought I should step in. I didn’t want to, because it would seem like a vanity project. But then, I did not have the money to cast another actor, so, I ended up playing the villain in the tale,” he explains.