Actor Anu Mohan teamed up with Vishnu Raghav for the first time during the production of a film and they have been close friends since.
Later, they decided to team up for their own film. And though they had enough contacts, they were not ready to attempt a feature film without proper training.
That was how they started out with short films and Anu became a screenplay writer for the first time. His second short film as screenplay writer, Open Your Mind, also directed by Vishnu, is currently getting rave reviews.
“Though I like to read fiction and cine-literature, I did not dream of becoming a screenplay writer. It was by chance, during the pre-production of our first short film, For Hire, that I got assigned to co-write the screenplay with Vishnu.”
“In fact we were planning to adapt a short story of an ace writer in Malayalam for that movie. But due to certain issues, we had to drop that. We zeroed in on a new subject, which was based on a real incident.
“That project gave me confidence that I could write screenplays and that is the factor which helped to write again for our new short film, Open Your Mind,” says the actor who has essayed a prominent role in the film.
As a screenplay writer, Open Your Mind gave Anu enough opportunity to understand more about the job. “It was initially conceived as a short anthology comprising five stories. But after the first draft, we cut it down to three stories. So we had to take an additional effort to preserve the crux of the theme during the editing of the script,” says Anu, adding that he cannot say anything about his M’town debut as a screenplay writer as it is too early.
As an actor, he has three movies in his kitty including Roopesh Peethambaran’s new film and debutant Anil’s Ente Amma, in which he will be acting alongside Kavya Madhavan.
