Update: ‘Sufiyum Sujatayum’ director Naranipuzha Shanavas passed away on Thursday. Many have expressed grief at his passing. Read here
Malayalam director Naranipuzha Shanavas has been hospitalised in the critical care unit of KG Hospital in Coimbatore after he went into cardiogenic shock during the shooting of his upcoming film. Gandhirajan, the PRO of the hospital, told TNM that Shanavas is on ventilator and is being monitored continuously for any improvement.
“He was brought here on Saturday night. He is in the ICU and is not stable now. Doctors are monitoring him,” Gandhirajan said. Cardiogenic shock is a condition in which one’s heart suddenly is not able to pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. A cardiogenic shock is most often caused by a severe heart attack.
Shanavas was reportedly in Palakkad's Attapadi, a tribal region, for shooting when the incident happened.
Shanavas’s Sufiyum Sujathayum was the first Malayalam film to directly release on OTT platform Amazon Prime Video after theatres across the country shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film came out on July 3, and starred Aditi Rao Hydari, Jayasurya and Dev Mohan. The story is about a Namboothiri woman with speech disability who falls in love with a sufi saint. Jayasurya played her husband. Although the music of the film by M Jayachandran received acclaim, the film itself got mixed reviews.
Shanavas's debut directorial Karie (meaning charcoal), released in 2015. It is a hard-hitting take on the ingrained casteism in society. The protagonist is from a lower caste and performs the temple art form of Karinkali, during which he is believed to become god. But even when he is god, the Karinkali is not allowed inside the temple because of his caste.
A still from Sufiyum Sujathayum