Biju Menon to play the lead in Priyadarshan’s feature in Netflix’s MT Vasudevan Nair anthology?

Netflix will be extending its formula of anthologies to attract regional audience with their upcoming feature on legendary Malayalam writer MT Vasudevan Nair’s short stories. We had earlier reported that Priyadarshan and Santosh Sivan have been confirmed as directors for two segments based on the upcoming anthology of MT’s short stories, and now we hear that Biju Menon has been roped into play the lead in Priyadarshan’s featurette. 

The filmmaker had earlier this month confirmed to us that he had met with MT Vasudevan Nair at his home in Kozhikode, where the duo had a two-day discussion about the script. According to a recent report by Can Channels, Biju Menon has now been confirmed as the lead for Priyadarshan’s segment, which is reportedly based on MT’s short story Shilalikhithangal. 

The anthology has eight segments, one of which will be directed by cinematographer Santosh Sivan. Siddique plays the lead in this segment. In an earlier interview with OTTplay, Santosh said, “Out of the eight stories, mine is the only one that is a bit abstract and poetic. The others are a bit verbose and are filled with dialogues. The short story is about a guy who returns to his roots. Visually, it has a lot of layers too.” 

On the importance of the anthology based on one of the country’s most prolific writers, Santosh said, “Only when you enjoy literature, you truly appreciate his works. It’s something big for us Malayalis because not many OTTs pay a lot of attention to Malayalam. As someone who is connected to OTTs, it’s hard to get people interested in the Malayalam film industry and literature. But when something like an anthology of MT's works is made on Netflix, it transcends language, depending on how it is shot and presented. That’s very important because currently, few original Indian OTT series have had a universal appeal. Nobody has touched our mythology yet, so that way there is a lot of potential in our regional content.”

The filmmaker also added that each of the segment will about 40 minutes in length and MT was keen in collaborating with directors who haven’t worked on his scripts before.