The last time Prince Joy said bye to his family, he had promised he’d return home as a filmmaker. Fourteen months sailed past. A couple of days ago, he met his parents and sister again at his home in Kannur, as director to the Sunny Wayne movie Kunjunniyude Kundithangal. He treaded each step carefully to reach his dream destination, cinema, choosing to stand out in the crowd. He announced his first movie with a comic style poster; its motion poster has amassed over 100K likes in just 24 hours of its social media release.
“My responsibility got bigger after my name appeared in the credits as assistant in the movies Karinkunnam 6’s and Alamara. Everyone in my native place was eagerly asking me when I was doing my own movie. I presented the story to Sunny when he was shooting for Ann Maria Kalippilanu and got his dates. All this while, I was looking for a producer and now the movie is set to start rolling in December,” says Prince.
Though new on big screen, Prince has the credit of making two short films. The first one, Ettukali, produced three years ago bagged 18 awards. In his maiden outing, Prince will be telling an experimental fantasy tale. The director prefers to stay tight-lipped about the thrill factor.
“As you see in the name, it is about three kundithams (woes) of our protagonist Kunjunni. He is the wayward son of a disciplinarian dad, who was a headmaster. The movie brings his pet dog to prominence. Kunjunni and the pet share a unique bonding wherein lies the crux of the plot,” he says.
The spark came to Prince from watching the Japanese movie Hachiko Monogatari. The real life tale of a loyal dog has a pet continuing its wait for his master for nine years, not knowing that he’s dead. “I wondered why we don’t have a movie like this in Malayalam. The story leaves ample space for the animal character,” says Prince. He calls his a different route and that his hero will have an unusual introduction in the opening.
Naveen T. Manilal has co-scripted the film with Prince. Story is from Aswin Prakash and Jishnu R. Nair. Pappinu is DoP. Actor Siddique comes in the role of the headmaster Varghese mash, somebody you can relate to Chacko mash, a character immortalised by Thilakan. The cast also includes Sanju Sivaram and Manikandan Achari.
