5 films on climate change

The year's world environment day celebrations at the capital city will have a special preview and release of five films on climate change. Organised by the Association of British Scholars in association with YMCA, the British High Commission, National Geographic channel and British Council, the package of short films ‘Five Scripts, One Plot: Solutions for Climate Change Challenges', focusing on climate changes, will be screened.

The short film package is directed by Nina Subramani, Madhyama Subramaniam, Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh, Bishnu Dev Halder, Jitendra Adappa, Vijay Bedi and Ajay Bedi, who were the winners of the UK Environment Film Fellowships-2010.

These films which focus on many environmental issues like effective ground water conservation and eco-friendly buildings also look into the lifestyle changes adopted by the residents of Bangalore to mitigate emission and the successful reforms introduced by the Surat Municipal Corporation .The short films will be later shown on the National Geographic channel. The short film packages produced by the British Council will be released by noted director Shayamaprasad on the 5th of this month, to inaugurate the Environment Day celebrations.

Parvathy out of Kandahar?

Major Ravi's latest project ‘Kandahar’ is continuously on news for the regular changes in its cast lines. Apart from the lead character played by Mohanlal, everyone in the original cast list seems to have changed, as the project is being developed. The latest news is that former Miss India Parvathy Omanakuttan, who was getting ready to land in Mollywood with the movie, seems to have been changed her mind as the director has finalized a Kannada star Ragini Dwivedi, for the role.

The news is yet to get confirmed, but the recent talks are all about the Kannada beauty who stared in films like ‘Veera Madagiri', getting a big chance to land in Mollywood. Let's wait for the confirmation in another few days.

Mammootty with Renjith in ‘Pranchiyettan And The Saint’

2009 was a very shiny year for Mammootty and director Renjith. Apart from the critical approval for their experiments in ‘Kerala Cafe’, their movie ‘Palery Manickyam: Oru Pathira Kolapathakathinte Katha’ has bagged many awards including the one for the best actor for Mammootty. The movie was released this year for those who missed it earlier. Anyhow the successful team is once again coming together, this time for a satire. Interestingly titled as ‘Pranchiyettan And The Saint’- the movie will be one of the immediate Mammootty movies to start its shoot.

Apart from Mammootty, Innocent will also appear as one of the title characters. As with Palery, this movie will also have plenty of faces from professional drama fields to don very important characters of the movie. The music for this hilarious satire will be by the National award winner Ouseppachan while cinematographer Venu will be in charge of the camera. Scripted by the director, ’Pranchiyettan And The Saint’ is all set to kick off its shoot by the mid of June.

M G Sreekumar, busy as music director

M G Sreekumar has been bestowed with a national award for his singing skills, more than a decade ago. But with the current inflow of talented youngsters into the industry has made the senior singer to wait for long in between each singing assignment.

In the last year, he was able to sing for only a few films. But the talented singer is not ready to rest idle and has started setting tunes to movie songs. M G Sreekumar who has earlier done the music of 'Achaneyanenikkishtam' and 'Thaandavam' is now ready with his new role as a music director in a number of new films including the Mohanlal starer ‘Oru Naal Varum’ slated for a release in a couple of weeks.

Moreover, the singer is also getting enough offers from Tamil industry. M G Sreekumar who debuted into Tamil as a music director with the offbeat movie ‘Kancheevaram’ by Priyadharshan has a number of good projects in the pipeline.

The next Tamil movie by him as a music director will be produced by the Malayalam banner Seven Arts.

Shebi Chavakkad wants new faces

Even as the young director Shebi Chavakkad's debut film ‘Plus Two’ is nearing release, the young director has started working for his next project in the title ‘Bachelors’.

The director who has used a bunch of fresh faces and ‘Kuselan’ fame Shafna for his previous film, will also go for a set of fresh names for his new flick.

Shebi is in the lookout for youngsters in the age group of 19-23. Interested candidates can forward their CV to Shebi at bachelorsthemovie@gmail.com.

Jayaram in 'Seniors'

After the roaring success of ‘Pokkiri Raja’, young director Vyshakh is getting ready to start the new movie titled ‘Seniors’. To be produced by Vyshakha Rajan, the movie will have the script written by Sachi-Sethu. The young director is again planning to bring together the senior stars to play the lead characters of the movie. And thus he will have Jayaram, Biju Menon, Raguman and another of the senior star to play the lead roles. The movie will be a full length comedy with nostalgic memories these seniors about their younger days. ‘Seniors’ will kick off its shoot by the last months of this year.

Biju ready with Raama Raavanan

Scriptwriter turned director Biju Vattappara is ready with his first flick with Suresh Gopi in the title ‘Raama Raavanan'. Based on a novel 'Manomi' by Late Madhavikutty, the movie will have Suresh Gopi as Thiruselvam an LTTE activist while Mithra Kurian will appear as the heroine playing the title character Manomi, a Sinhalese girl.

The music and lyrics of the film is by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri & Rafi Mathira while the cinematography is by Jibu Jacob. Biju Vattappara has shot the film at locations in Sri Lanka, Thenkasi and Thiruvananthapuram.

‘Raama Raavanan’ will be the next release of Suresh Gopi as it will get to theatres by next weekend.