On to a larger canvas

K R Manoj, winner of the recently-announced national award for the best investigative film in the non-feature film category, is busy with the preliminary work of his first feature film. But what is bothering this film-maker is the economic viability of the project. “I have a couple of ideas with me but I would opt for the most financially viable one,” he said. He says his idea of a film would not fit into a commercial project.“I cannot afford to cast a star. It is not only because of the financial commitment, the subject of my film cannot afford the weight resulting from the casting of a star,” he said. Manoj said he will invest on the technicians associated with the project.  Cameraman Shehnad Jallal and sound-recordist Harikumar have all worked with him on his earlier projects like the documentary ‘16 mm- Memories, Movement and a Machine’. Recently, Shehnad Jallal had won the state award for best cinematographer, and Harikumar, the national award for best sound-recordist for Manoj’s film in the non-feature film category.“The technicians who worked for the documentary had not taken remuneration. Even then, the documentary had a big budget. A production cost of Rs 6 lakh was a huge investment for a documentary. If the remuneration for the technicians had been included it would have crossed Rs 10 lakh,” he said. Manoj also said that some of his friends who want to see him as a film director would finance his feature film. Though the film would be in Malayalam, he is aiming for a larger audience from outside the state. He is trying to procure funds from foreign producers of art house movies.  Manoj won the national award for ‘A Pestering Journey’ that examines how pesticides tamper with the very designs of nature and life. ‘Pestering Journey’ is a voyage through two similar pesticide tragedies of Bhatinda in Punjab and Kasargod district. It primarily speaks Malayalam but also has Punjabi, Hindi, English and Tulu. “It was not aimed at the Malayali audience. The issue of endosulfan has become redundant to the Malayali audience. However, there was the need to bring the issue to the domain of a larger Indian audience,” he said. Manoj, a KSEB staff, is currently on long leave without pay. “I want to focus more on cinema,” he said.It was his association with the film society movement that helped him become a film director. He could learn the global language of cinema even without any academic learning. Manoj is a postgraduate in media and communication. His first production venture was a television series on kathakali music for Doordarshan in 1997. He co-produced and directed the short film ‘Agni’ in 2003 and the documentary ‘16 mm - Memories Movement and a Machine’ in 2007. ‘16 mm’ won the Best Documentary and Best Director award at the Kerala State Film Awards of  2008.