Director Siddique has been in the favourite list of Malayali film buffs for the past 27 years since he started his career with the 1989 hit Ramji Rao Speaking. Even though he had back-to-back hits, he was not found doing more than a film a year, making his filmography shorter compared to his contemporaries. Now, after a gap of around 20 months, the director is all set to come up with his new flick Fukri. Though his first three films were non-superstar movies, most of his later movies had super stars and megastars in the lead —Mohanlal, Mammootty in Malayalam, Vijay, Suriya and Vijayakanth in Tamil and Salman Khan in Hindi.
But after a big gap, he is again going for a non-super star movie. Quizzed about that, he says, “The stories are always written with a particular actor in our mind. Sometimes, we attempt to create roles without a particular person in mind —- like Anjooran in Godfather. But the majority of the superstar films were written for them. I am comfortable in doing both movies as actors enact the roles we create. Jayasurya, is a brilliant actor who is capable of coming up with enigmatic performances, came on board after I completed the scripting. In fact, now I cannot think about another actor who would have done the role with such perfection; he was the apt one.”
Fukri too is a different title like his previous films. “I always think deeply before zeroing in on a title for my film. The title is the first factor that connects a film with audience. It should be attractive as well as reflecting with the storyline. If the name failed to connect with the story, naturally, the audience fail to recollect the name of the film after a few years,” he explains. The director is also known to name his movies in English. “I always try to come up with interesting titles as well as the names for my characters such as Mannar Mathai, Ramji Rao and Anjooran. It should be interesting and should catch the eye of audience. And that’s why I prefer English names for my movies. Initially, only my movies had English titles, but now, majority of the films have such titles. In the meantime, I always try to select English words which are popular among the common people. Only Chronic Bachelor was not that much popular; we had to explain the meaning to many people,” he elaborates.
But Fukri is an Urdu word. And he says, “In this film, it has been used as the family name. I had to think a lot for this name as this time I wanted to come up with a small, but powerful name. And this is not my first movie with an Urdu title; the earlier one was Kabooliwala. When it comes to Malayalam names, for Ramji Rao Speaking, our initial choice was Nombarangale Sullu Sullu. We changed it later following the suggestion from Fazil sir. Even In Harihar Nagar’s first name was Marathon because of that ‘run’ of the lead characters. But Marathon lacked that fun-romantic elements and we opted for the other one,” he says. Fukri, for Siddique, is special in another way. This is his first production under the banner S Talkies. Though he has earlier tried his hands on production along with his friend Lal for Rafi Mecartin’s Superman, Fukri is his first movie under his own production house.
“I have been thinking about launching my own production house for the past few years. In fact, the films I did during the first two decades of my career was under my friends’ production like Swargachithra, Fazil sir, Lal and Khais. It was during the making of Bodyguard in Malayalam that I decided to turn into production owing to some bitter experiences, which made me decide that my next film in Malayalam would be produced by my own company. But owing to commitments with my friends Antony Perumbavoor and Anto Joseph, I did films for them. Fukri is the first from S Talkies and all my future films will be done under the same banner. Other producers will be free to fund my directorials, but will be produced only in association with my banner,” he says. Fukri is produced by Siddique along with Jenso Jose and Vaishak Rajan. So what about his films in other languages? “My very next will be in Tamil, which will be the remake of Bhaskar the Rascal with Arvind Swamy. It will be produced by a Tamil producer, but will be executed by S Talkies. If I do a Hindi film too, the procedure will be the same,” he points out. Most of the films directed by Siddique had got remade in other languages.
“I think just one or two movies are left to get a new version in other languages, when the rest of the films got a chance to come out in Hindi, Tamil and more languages. I feel proud that my films are getting more and more audiences that way. In fact, I do not do films with a target that it should be remade later. It is all happening, perhaps because of the subjects I take. I do not try to please a particular set of audience with my stories. So naturally, it could entertain all sorts of audiences. That is why all my films get remade. But one of the criticisms that I faced after the release of my Bodyguard in Malayalam was also related to this remake matter. I heard that my producer told others that I did that film in Malayalam with a target to remake it in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil, and it was just with such an aim that I did it in Malayalam. That was an absurd statement. In fact that comment was a big shock for me. I did not do any film in such a way. That is also one of the reasons behind the launch of my own production,” he tells DC.
