Thiruvananthapuram: Sudevan has not come for the International Film Festival of Kerala this year. Three years ago, he had quietly come, merged with the crowds, walking around with his long beard and ‘thol sanji’ till people started recognising him as the man who made CR No.89, the film that would go on to win the NETPAC award for best Malayalam film at that IFFK and later the state award for best film. But Sudevan and his films were already known in most of the film circles in Kerala. His short films, especially the 50-minute long ‘Thattumporathappan’ had been well loved. So when he made his first feature – CR No.89 – he didn’t have the usual starting trouble that directors have. His constraints were of a different kind.
“One was that I was not happy with the climax we had shot. I felt it was incomplete so we waited for a year and a half till I could think of a proper ending. Another was finding the location – we went through several places – all the lanes and by lanes in the neighborhood – before fixing one, that was quite near home,” Sudevan says. When he was filming CR. No. 89, he only thought it would be a 60-minute film, not all that different from ‘Thattumporathappan’. “It is in the editing table that it became a feature,” Sudevan says. “For the films before this, we had used only one camera. But this time we had three cameras, with three shots for one take – close, wide and medium. And a budget of one lakh rupees. So we had to finish it fast, in six or seven days.” Other than that Sudevan didn’t have the typical starting troubles of a first time director, his short films and documentaries before this, having given him his first lessons.
