Vineeth Sreenivasan turns a family man'

If you give him DVDs of two films, a thriller and a family drama Vineeth is bound to pick the thriller. But he won’t say no to family drama films as he has a liking for such movies too. Vineeth Sreenivasan, who gifted a mind-blowing thriller Thira in 2013, dons the director’s cap again for a family theme— Jacobinte Swargarajyam (JSR), which will hit the screens in April.

“Thriller is my favourite genre. That doesn’t mean that I do not like other genres. Selecting a thriller does not influence me while choosing the subjects for my directorial ventures,” says the singer-turned-writer-director.

Vineeth says it was not a conscious decision to go ahead with a family subject after Thira. “It was this subject which made me do a family film next. In fact, Jacobinte Swargarajyam is based on a real incident, which happened in my friend’s family. When I came to know about it, I could sense a chance for a film and that was how this movie happened,” he says. For Jacobinte Swargarajyam, Vineeth has devoted around one- and-a-half years for scripting alone.

“It was in the beginning of 2014 I heard about this incident. Then I was writing the screenplay of Oru Vadakkan Selfie for Prejith ettan. Even during its final draft, my thoughts were around that particular incident,” the director opens up about his preparation.

“Jacobinte Swargarajyam narrates the story of a family with six members—a father, mother and their four children, who are settled in Dubai. I found it challenging to write the dialogues and finalise the behaviour of each character as they all belonged to different age groups. I had no idea about the ambience in a family with six members as I grew up in a family of four. So I had to go for a detailed research to give a final format for each character,” he says.

Vineeth is noted for connecting his films to his hometown Thalassery. But this time, his film has no connection with Thalassery as it is completely set against the backdrop of Dubai. “Like every Malayali, I am mentally connected to my hometown where I spend my childhood. It is only because of my work I choose to stay away from there. May be that nostalgia prompts me to connect my films to that place. But Jacobinte Swargarajyam cannot be placed anywhere other than Dubai. This story is that connected with that country,” says the director.

When quizzed about his next directorial venture, Vineeth says, "It will happen only after two years. So what about the second segment of Thira? “It will be a challenging project as I have to cross some hurdles. The main factor will be the budget. As the sequel should be set in a bigger canvas, the production cost also will be high. The second factor will be date of the actors. More than that, I have to think for a new track by avoiding the child actors who appeared in the previous part as there occurred a massive change in their looks,” he signs off.