It’s been more than 20 years, but Arun Punalur doesn’t sound dejected. He sounds excited when finally his first role as an actor came to him through Dr Biju’s Kaadu Pookkunna Neram. “I am one of those four naked men you see on the screen,” he laughs. Arun, who worked as still photographer in the film, had initially asked the associate director of the film, Shijith, if there was a Maoist character he could play. Shijith said there wasn’t, but later told him about an Adivasi character who would be arrested for alleged links to a Maoist. “But you’ll have to stand naked once the police arrests you, he told me. I said I was ready.” So Arun, known to many as a freelance photographer and documentary director finally became an actor, that he had dreamt to be for 20 so years.
Like all cinema obsessed young men of those days he had gone to the then Madras and struggled for days and months. “One day I met a photographer who suggested that I try photography. I was ready to try anything to get an opening in cinema.” He came back to Kerala and tried working in a studio. When that didn’t work out, he became a freelance photographer, his photos coming regularly in film magazines. “That had started with my becoming an assistant to a production controller in Ilavangodu Desham. I made many media contacts.” He went on to become a still photographer in TV serials and the first film came with Dalamarmarangal by Vijayakrishnan. After that he began making documentaries, his Ormakalilekku Oru Ottayadi Paada winning many awards. “It was in a documentary festival I first meet Dr Biju.”
He got his second small role in Vyasan K.P’s Ayal Jeevichirippundu, in which he is again still photographer. “I am also still photographer for Dr Biju’s next, Sound of Silence.”
