Why Manju Warrier & Saiju Sreedharan are releasing Footage, their Malayalam found footage film in Hindi

(Clockwise from left) Actress-producer Manju Warrier (left) and director Saiju Sreedharan (centre) in a BTS still from the shooting of the Malayalam found-footage film 'Footage' in the Thrissur forest; stills from the film.

It was at the Mumbai premiere of Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Malayalam film Angamaly Diaries (2017) where actress Manju Warrier was taken by surprise when Anurag Kashyap walked towards her and spoke to her “very sweetly”. Warrier, a self-professed “big admirer” of his work, didn’t expect him to have noticed her in films or to even know her name. That is quite modest of Malayalam cinema’s only female superstar — the mention of the epithet robs the luminous smile off her face. “I really don’t like the word,” she says, “I don’t believe in stardom or superstars, or even female and male actors, they are all just actors who work.”

Malayalam cinema changed in the between between Manju Warrier's two innings in the industry. The first was in the mid-to-late-’90s when she was at the peak of her career and her second coming in 2014, with Rosshan Andrrews’ How Old Are You? Her role as Pachaiyammal in Vetrimaaran’s Dhanush-starrer Tamil film Asuran (2019) would become as memorable as her earlier iconic characters, even harking back to her feisty Bhanu from Kanmadam (1998). “I’ve been very fortunate to be approached with very interesting stories and diverse roles, both in Malayalam and Tamil and I look forward to Hindi now,” she says. In her forthcoming Tamil film Mr X, she plays a raw agent. Talking about her role in Saiju Sreedharan’s Footage (2024), releasing in Hindi this week, Warrier says, “It’s always a pleasure to look forward to new challenges. It helps you to grow as an actor when you explore new territories and do things that you have never done before. It keeps you going.”

Was it difficult for her to make that decadal switch, from conventional author-backed roles to more experimental films? No, she says. “I felt changes have always been there. The only constant is change. When I started working again, maybe the technology had changed. And of course, the audience, the attitude and the taste always keep changing. And cinema keeps changing according to that. My transition was very smooth and natural,” adds Warrier, “I can’t put a finger on what the difference is but there is a difference. Now, content needs to be the king. If you have a good content and the film is made well, which entertains the audience, the audience will enjoy the film irrespective of who is acting in it. And as a woman, I’m very happy and proud to see that more and more women are coming into the industry right now.”

Separating her two professional innings was a 15 year-long-exile after Warrier’s marriage to Dileep, now ex-husband, accused in the high-profile 2017 sexual assault case which rocked the Malayalam film industry. Unrelated but since then, she has faced stalking, harassment and cyberattacks, but she stays buoyant amid it all. How? I ask. “It’s the easiest thing. You just need to decide what deserves a reaction from you,” she responds.

Eight years ago, at the aforementioned Bombay premiere, began Warrier’s friendship with Kashyap, the current darling of the Malayalam film fraternity. He recently made his Malayalam film-acting debut as the villain in Aashiq Abu’s Rifle Club (2024). Kashyap, seemingly done and dusted with Bollywood, stays up-to-date about the going-ons in the southern cinemascape. He and his long-time producer Ranjan Singh recently produced and presented Natesh Hegde’s Kannada indie film Vaghachipani/Tiger’s Pond, which features Malayalam actor-director Dileesh Pothan. Pothan directed Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016) and co-produced Kumbalangi Nights (2019), both the films were edited by Saiju Sreedharan, who enjoyed working on the Fahadh Faasil-starrer Maheshinte… the most because “it had a different narration style” and he got all the freedom to go snip-snip in his way.

Malayalam film editor-turned-director Saiju Sreedharan.

Last year, when Sreedharan (Mayanaadhi, Virus, Android Kunjappan Ver 5.25, Anweshippin Kandethum) released his Malayalam directorial debut Footage, Kashyap presented the film. Kashyap and Singh are now presenting and distributing the Hindi version of the film, which releases in theatres on March 7. The shy Sreedharan, a graduate of Thrissur’s Chetana Media Institute, admits that he has no experience in directing a movie, “I never went to a set. I usually stay in my studio.” In childhood, on Saturdays, he and his friends watched Star Movies — I’m unclear whether he meant the TV channel or the franchise films of Star Wars or Star Trek — and “tried to shoot similar versions of shorts on a handycam. We tried to edit it on a software called Pinnacle Studio. That was the start actually,” he says.

Footage is among the first found-footage films in Malayalam, but not the first. Before Kochi-based Sreedharan, Wayanad-based Nirmal Baby Varghese made a found footage horror film in Malayalam, Vazhiye, on a paltry Rs 10,000 budget. Both the films have two YouTube vloggers at its centre.

In Footage, the narrative unspools through video recordings which the characters shoot. Every scene is a footage from those recordings. “That is the only visual language in the film,” says Warrier, who plays a mysterious woman living in the same apartment as a curious, prying vlogger couple (Vishak Nair and Gayathri Ashok) who embark on a risky adventure when they decide to follow Warrier’s character into Thrissur’s jungles, cameras in hand.

In a found-footage film, characters shoot (a film within a film) on camcorders. The camera becomes a character and the viewer feels like they are part of the action. This technique also creates the illusion that the audience is watching real recordings of events. “I wanted to do something different,” says Sreedharan, who received a phone message from Varghese stating that his was the first found-footage film in Malayalam. Sreedharan says Vazhiye “isn’t completely found footage. There are a few cheatings there. There is background score and music (by American film composer Evan Evans, the son of jazz pianist Bill Evans).”

“Found-footage films have its own share of challenges,” adds Warrier, “while shooting, you are watching every scene as a single shot. And the effort, choreography, planning and coordination between the cast and crew was very different from how it happens in a normal film.”

Footage, the highly anticipated film, with an exciting trailer, underwhelmed at the box office last year and produced lukewarm response among critics who found the sparse screenplay a chink in the film’s armour. But Singh says, “We genuinely think it’s a good film. It’s a differently made film. Of course, there are found-footage films but this was pretty slick and it has a great story.”

Stills from the Malayalam found-footage film 'Footage'.

Warrier hints at one of the reasons for low footfalls in the region, “We knew that this film is for the 18-plus-year audience. We were not expecting the family audience to rush to the theatres to watch it,” she says, adding, “Every film has its own destiny at the end of the day. Every film is made only with a good intention. There is no film that has been made to not run,” quips Warrier, adding, “We are expecting a better reception in Hindi and want the film to reach more and more audience. And the amount of support that Anurag Sir’s name has given to this film is immense. It has made our journey into Hindi very easy. Because he’s so popular and so loved by the Hindi film audience, the film will attract attention.” Sreedharan would have loved to release the film in English, he says.

“If the Malayalam film could have travelled more, to the rest of the country, then there wouldn’t have been a need [for a Hindi release]. But because it’s still not come on any OTTs, we felt that if we put it out there, it can reach out to a wider audience. That’s the reason why we are looking to distribute it to around 25-30 theatres in about 8-9 cities as of now,” Singh adds.

The optimum experience of a film like this can be had only on the big screen. “The way you feel when you watch the film in a theatre is completely different from what you feel when you watch at home, on a TV or a gadget. We would want everyone above 18 years of age to watch the film,” adds Warrier, who both acts in and has produced the film, under her joint production venture with producer Bineesh Chandran, Movie Bucket. She has an independent production house called Manju Warrier Productions which has realised films like A’hr/Kayattam (2020) and Lalitham Sundaram (2022). “We tried several investors but no one was going to produce it. It is a purely found footage film, with shaky visuals. It is so hard to explain. Manju chechi [elder sister] loved the script and the whole idea and came on board,” says Sreedharan.

Behind-the-scenes stills from the sets of 'Footage'.

Warrier just dubbed for L2: Empuraan in Hindi, the second film in Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Lucifer trilogy, due for release in all languages on March 27. Footage is probably the first film for which Warrier haven’t had to dub for because she’s not speaking anything in the film. For Lalitham Sundaram (Hotstar), she had dubbed for herself in Hindi. Four years ago, she shot for what could have been her Hindi film debut, opposite Madhavan, titled Amriki Pandit, but the project remains incomplete.

In Footage, she speaks no word. Her character was originally written for a man, until Warrier came on board. “I was very attracted to the concept of the film. It was innovative, a new thought that Saiju and Shabna [Mohammed, writer] had come to us with,” she says, “It was a very impulsive decision.” Warrier had to undergo action training, says Sreedharan, “We had a workshop and training sessions. No body doubles were used. It’s all her. She was awesome. Just one shot.” Warrier has done minor action sequences in her films previously but “this kind of a role was a first for me. Everything about the film was a first for me,” she says. No dialogues are given to Warrier in the film, she communicates through written notes. The answer for that also lies in the film. “That was one of the most interesting things about the character for me,” she says, “It’s quite different from the usual characters I get to play, here’s a character which doesn’t have a name, or any dialogue. You wonder where she came from, where she’s going. My character has that mystery to it.”

Cinematographer Shinoz (Pranaya Vilasam) shot the film on the 1.89:1 aspect ratio. Footage is made up of 120 scenes in 120 shots, “there are no extra shots.” Even as a director, Sreedharan’s lens will remain that of an editor first. “Editing helped me a lot,” he says, “There were no deleted scenes. Everything was in order.”

The recordings of the second camera which the girlfriend wields in the film makes the narrative non-linear. “I think no one tried that in a found footage movie,” says Sreedharan, who counts The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cloverfield (2008) among his favourite found-footage films, and triumphantly declares, “I will never do a normal movie. I like to experiment.”

Sreedharan doesn’t like to “spoon-feed the audience. I want the audience to watch the narration, story and detailing carefully. All answers lie in there.” Footage “is a different cinema-viewing experience, a rare kind of genre in Indian films,” says Warrier, adding, “The fate of a film, ultimately, lies in the hands of the audience in the end.”