Raj B. Shetty teams up with Aparna Balamurali for Malayalam debut Rudhiram

"The Axe Forgets, But the Tree Remembers," read actors Raj B. Shetty and Aparna Balamurali's recent Instagram captions as they shared the first-look poster of their upcoming collaboration. The film they referred to is Rudhiram, a seemingly moody thriller directed by ad filmmaker Jisho Lon Antony which marks Kannada actor Raj Shetty's Malayalam debut.

Raj will also work with Soorarai Pottru actress Aparna Balamurali for the very first time in his career and the duo has expressed genuine excitement over sharing the screen in the upcoming film. Rudhiram has been co-written by Jisho Lon Antony along with Joseph Kiran George, produced by VS Lalan, and the team plans on taking the film on floors sometime in 2023. The film will be released in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu.

Midhun Mukundan, who has previously worked with Raj B. Shetty on Ondu Motteya Kathe and the more recent Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana, will score the music of Rudhiram. Sajad Kaakku will handle cinematography and Bavan Sreekumar comes on board as the editor.

National Award winner Aparna Balamurali will also be working in Pawan Kumar's Dhoomam alongside Fahadh Faasil. Much like Rudhiram, Dhoomam too will be a multilingual release with Malayalam and Kannada being the two main focus areas of the Bengaluru-based production house Hombale Films. Dhoomam was officially launched on October 10 and will go on floors in the first week of November.

Raj B. Shetty, on the other hand, achieved nationwide prominence for directing and starring in the 2021 gangster drama Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana. The film utilized the modern-day Mangaluru crime world as its main setting to narrate a poignant tale of friendship, loyalty, and greed with Rishab Shetty of Kantara fame playing the other lead. Raj Shetty won equal praise for his performance as the hot-headed Shiva and his finesse as the director which helped in pushing the envelope in Kannada cinema. Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap spoke highly of Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana and called it a "brilliant" movie.