If you watch carefully, you can spot traces of the child actor that he was, back in the 90s. Vineeth Anil had grown up since the days he became Vikru to Mohanlal’s Ashokettan in Yodha. No, not the Nepali boy who calls him Akosetta. This is the other boy he leaves behind in his hometown. Those days his was a familiar face. He’d appear regularly playing someone’s little boy — Sreenivasan’s in Aanaval Mothiram, Suresh Gopi’s in Aksharathettu. And in his very first movie Thaniyavarthanam, he played Mammootty’s son. There was the usual business of growing up and studies and job after that. But when he felt like making a comeback, he chose to direct. Osyathu was completed in 10 days and is now in its final stages of post production, ready for a release in two months.
“It would translate to the testament, in English. Basically it is the will you write at the end of life,” says Vineeth who did his little research. With a little French beard and a slight Thiruvananthapuram accent, he looks a lot different from the little boy we have seen him as. And it was not just the 15 or more movies, but a few television series too, like Oru Kudyaum Kunju Pengalum. “And three ads, one of which was with Divya Unni,” he remembers. The last of the movies was an art house one called Kochaniyan. And coincidentally his first venture as a director would also be an art house film. “The kind of budget we had was pretty limited. In the end that is how it worked out,” he says.
Vineeth who went abroad and began work in the accounts field, drifted back to cinema when he met Vijayakrishnan sir, his old mentor whom he had once assisted in directing a serial. “He had a novel with him called Osyathu and we thought about making it a film,” Vineeth says. The script was written, mutual friends brought into the crew. “Other than me, the associate director, the assistant director, the cameraman, and the music director are all new in this field. I mean it is my first time too as a director.” But the actors were not newcomers. “There is Jithu Johny who played a role in Zahir, Arun, the skater boy in Olympian Anthony Adam, Arun Nair who appeared in Ozhivu Divasathe Kali, Prakash Bare, Sangeetha Mohan, Kochu Preman, Gayathri etc.” Only the female lead Bhagyalakshmi is a newcomer. “It is a family story, the incidents that come out of a misunderstanding between two brothers.” Vineeth too plays a small role. The film was mostly shot in Chitranjali studio and thereabouts. “I wish to direct one more film soon, to be more confident,” he says.
