Sajeev Pazhoor is in seventh heaven after hearing the news of winning the national film award for the best original screenplay. He won the award for writing the script for the hit movie Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum. As Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum had received exceptional reviews, the state award surprised none. Not even the man himself. But Sajeev Pazhoor says he never expected the national award.
“I knew this script will do well and I was not expecting national awards, even though it won the state award. Competing in the national level is very different. The competition is very tough and all were great scripts. We were competing with Tamil, Marathi and Bengali films, which have been doing great in recent years. But I was sure that I have done something worthy of getting good recognition,” he says.
Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum with Sajeev's wonderful and quirky story about a thief who swallows a gold chain, has been one of the most successful films last year. The Fahadh Faasil-starrer is directed by Dileesh Pothan. Fahadh has won the national award for the best supporting actor. The film has also won the best Malayalam movie award.
“For more than two decades, Malayalam cinema was one of the best in the country. But other language films were able to overtake us, especially Tamil movies. But this year we have got many awards and I should say Malayalam cinema is back where it belongs,” he said.
Sajeev says the story, which was actually written by him with the intention of directing it himself, was later on given to Dileesh. “I wrote the screenplay and wanted to direct it myself. But due to some matters, later, we decided to go with Dileesh directing it. Syam, who wrote the dialogues, also did a great job. I would like to thank both Dileesh and Syam for their contributions. Each and every character did dialogue modulations on their own will and it really worked well.”
The story was written as a bilingual one. When he completed the story, Sajeev had written it for Tamil also. Sajeev believes the award has given him great responsibility and he is hopeful of delivering more great scripts in the future. He is now busy with one of his new projects.
