Ajoy Varma, a popular film editor, has two Hindi movies - Dus Tola and SRK – to his credit as director. The editor-turned-director announced last year that he would be directing a Malayalam film with Mohanlal in the lead.
The shooting of this film titled Neerali commenced in January this year and was wrapped up within a short period of time. On directing a Malayalam film for the first time, Ajoy Varma had said in an interview to the Deccan Chronicle, “I have been exposed to Malayalam films since my childhood and coincidentally most of the movies that I saw were Mohanlal films. You can even say I was raised watching his films. Since Hindi was my comfort zone, obviously Bollywood became my place of work; I became an editor and directed two films.”
The director went on to add that when writer Saju Thomas approached him with the script of Neerali, he immediately decided that it would be made into a film only if Mohanlal agreed to do the lead role. The film eventually materialised and is all set for release soon.
On his meeting with the star, the director recalled, “There was a certain amount of anxiety about how he would react to the story but he responded in a very positive manner. So everything proceeded smoothly.”
According to Ajoy Varma, Neerali is a thriller drama with some VFX effects. Yet another factor that makes it an important film is that it will have Mohanlal and Nadia sharing screen space after three decades. Bankrolled by Santhosh T. Kuruvilla, John Thomas and Mibu Jose Nettikadan under the banner Moon Shot Entertainments, the film is scheduled for release on July 12th.
(Content provided by Digital Native)