Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy to stream on Neestream from June 24

Mollywood actress Parvathy Thiruvothu launched the motion poster and announced the release date of director Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy through her social media handles. The movie, which is written and directed by Leena, will be released on Malayalam OTT platform Neestream on June 24.

The movie is a coming-of-age story of an adolescent girl born in a marginalised caste in remote Tamil Nadu. Maadathy speaks of the Puthirai Vannars, who are forced to wash clothes of the Dalits and the deceased, and the community’s menstruating women forced to hide from the rest of the society as they are perceived as “contamination”. The movie is a reflection on gender, caste and identity, religious beliefs and violence, according to a statement issued by the makers. 

Parvathy, who shared the poster, tweeted, “Presenting the official motion poster of Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale directed by @LeenaManimekali. Congratulations to the cast & crew for such a powerful film.”

Leena’s previous films such as Goddesses, Sengadal the Deadsea, My Mirror is the Door, White Van Stories and Is It Too Much To Ask were critically acclaimed and had also won numerous awards at international film festivals. Rafiq Ismail and Yavanika Sriram have co-written Maadathy’s screenplay with Leena. 

Ajmina Kassim, Patrick Raj, Semmalar Annam and Arul Kumar play the lead characters in Maadathy while the ensemble cast is from the community itself. Jeff Dolen, Abinandhan Ramanujam and Karthik Muthukumar are the cinematographers of the film, which also has editor Thangaraj, sound designer Tapas Nayak and composer Karthik Raja as part of the crew.  

Maadathy had been screened at Busan International Film Festival, Kolkata International Film Festival, Latin American FICCI 60, Third Eye Asian Film Festival, Chicago South Asian Film Festival and DC South Asian Film Festival. The movie also received FIPRESCI Jury Award, Golden Kailasha for Best Film, Best Actress and Best Cinematography Awards at Aurangabad International Film Festival 2020 and was nominated for Les Rimbaud Du Cinema Awards in France.