As a young boy growing up at Mattannur, in North Kerala, Salim Ahamed was seriously into activities as diverse as volleyball and mimicry.
“I come from a family of volleyball players; I myself have played for Kerala in the National junior championship. And I was part of a mimicry troupe called Chaplins India, which used to be pretty popular,” says Salim, who is known more for his talent as a film director these days.
He had also worked in a travel agency and had also dabbled in business. He joined the School of Drama and Fine Arts in Thrissur, but didn’t complete the course. He wrote and directed successful comedies on television. But, back in his mind, he always knew that he would end up in cinema.
And he did.
He made a stunning debut four years ago, with Adaminte Makan Abu , which swept the National and State Awards. It also won awards at international film festivals in Goa and Kerala. And it was India’s entry for the Oscars, for the best foreign language film.
“When I decided to produce Adaminte Makan Abu after quitting the well-paid job as a writer for television, my friends wondered if I was making the right choice. But, I told them that I worked so hard to make money in television only to make a feature film,” he says.
He feels Adaminte Makan Abu would have done better at the box office had the film been released before it won all those awards. There is this stigma in Kerala regarding award-winning movies; viewers believe such films would bore them to death. We cannot blame them for that as some of our directors did make such films,” he says.
His latest film, Pathemari , though has done well, reviving hopes for meaningful cinema in Malayalam.
Pathemari, easily one of the best Malayalam films of the year, boasts a fine performance by Mamootty too.
“Mammootty has played a big role in the success of Pathemari ; he agreed to do the film just five minutes after I started narrating the plot to him. Only he could have portrayed the three stages of Narayanan so convincingly. And his stardom has also helped the film to reach a wide audience,” says Salim.
Not surprisingly, the film is doing well in the Middle East countries; it is after all the story of the average Malayali who sacrifices a lot for his family back home.
“It has crossed four weeks in 60 screens in the UAE. I have also been part of programmes in which the Malayalis who were among the earliest to reach the Gulf countries were honoured,” he says.
He says he was moved the other day when a stranger told him at the Kochi airport that he had flown in earlier in the day only to watch Pathemari .
“It is moments like that when you realise that you have succeeded in communicating to the audience through your work of art. I had worked hard on Pathemari , on all its aspects, right from the research to the graphics. I also was careful about casting,” he says. Salim, you have to admit, has a knack for casting. Remember Salim Kumar and Zarina Wahab.
“I chose Salim after watching him in Bridge , one of the films in the portmanteau Kerala Café , and Perumazhakkalam . As for Zarina, I felt she had the looks of a Muslim woman from the Thalassery region,” he explains.
Adaminte Makan Abu was followed by Kunjananthante Kada , for which he teamed up with Mammootty for the first time. “That film remains closest to my heart. That is also because I had gone through what Kunjananthan went through in the film,” he says.
Salim says he is no hurry to make his next film. “I don’t want to direct a film just for the sake of making a film, or because I have the dates of a star. I have to convince myself about the need of making a certain movie,” he says.
