Only days ago, the film had been in the news. Somewhere in Pathanapuram, the film — Sachin — was being shot, when a few Youth Congress members came and disrupted the shooting.
News channels picked it up and found it was because the makers of the film refused to give a donation. “They have been suspended,” says director Santhosh Nair, days later, after he finished the schedule.
Sixty per cent of the film is now wrapped, and the director, who made his first feature with Fahadh Faasil through Money Ratnam, talks about the new venture, which tells a love story in the background of cricket.
“When the writer — Jayasurya — told me the story, I liked the plot. We all like cricket and have played the game as children. We decided to put that in the background with a lot of love and humour,” Santhosh says.
Dhyan Sreenivasan plays the lead, supported by actors like Aju Varghese, Sharath (Appani Ravi from Angamaly Diaries), Reshma Rajan, and so on.
Still from Sachin
“I told Dhyan about it at the time of Ore Mukham, for which I was executive producer and he was playing the lead. I met him at the location and he said he will hear it when it’s dubbing time,” Santhosh remembers. Dhyan must have liked what he heard, for he was in as Sachin, the name of the character, given by parents who loved cricket.
“And the boy is born on the same day that Sachin Tendulkar plays his first One Day International,” Santhosh says. The film revolves around two clubs playing the game in a village. That may come as a reminder of 1983, another cricket-based film set in a village, but Santhosh stresses there is no similarity with any other film.
Santhosh has been working as an assistant director for a long time. He has done about 30 films with different filmmakers like Rosshan Andrrews and Renji Panicker. He started off with the late Venu Nagavally and Kulathoor G. Mithran. “I had gone to study Hotel Management in Chennai. But because of my passion for cinema, changed directions,” he says.
Sachin is expected to release in November-December.
