Djibouti, the upcoming Malayalam film, written and directed by filmmaker SJ Sinu, will be releasing in theatres in December, the director told Silverscreen India.
Speaking about the film whose tagline reads, ‘Love between two countries’, the director said, “It is a multi-genre film that is family-oriented and also features a love story. It can be called a family action drama. It follows two guys in their 20s who work as jeep drivers for tourists in Idukki. They come across a girl from the East African country of Djibouti. Following this, the duo moves to Djibouti for better employment. However, they meet with a few problems there, and how they come out of it forms the rest of the plot. The story is only set in Kerala for 30 minutes, the rest of the runtime takes place in Djibouti.”
Produced by Jobi P Sam, Djibouti stars Amith Chakalakkal, Jacob Gregory, Shagun Jaswal, Dileesh Pothen, Rohith Maggu, and Anjali Nair, among others. Besides them, local artists from Djibouti have also acted in the film, the directed mentioned.
While Chakalakkal and Gregory play the jeep drivers, Jaswal plays the girl. Pothan and Nair play a couple who reside in Djibouti, he added.
The screenplay has been written by Sinu in association with Afsal Abdul Latheef. The director revealed that the film is based on a true story that happened in Djibouti. “I heard the story from my friend – it happened to his acquaintance. I wrote the story in 2018 and the pre-production work began the following year,” he added.
Djibouti went on floors in January 2020 and filming began in Vagamon, Kochi, and Munnar in Kerala. After the Kerala schedule, the team, including cinematographer TD Sreenivas, shifted base to Djibouti and continued shooting there in March and April.
“At the time we went there, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic was not felt much and about 72 crew members worked in Djibouti. However, we ended up getting stranded there for about two months. The local government helped us a lot during this time. We came back to India only in August, after which we began post-production work,” said Sinu, explaining the delay in finishing the film.
Recommended
Djibouti, which includes five songs composed by Deepak Dev, is currently in the final stages of post-production and will be sent to the CBFC for certification soon. The makers are looking to release dubbed versions of the film in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, and French, in addition to the original Malayalam.
Asked why the team chose to wait to release the film in theatres when several big Malayalam films opted to go the OTT route, Sinu said they wanted the audience to get the theatrical experience particularly since the film explores two terrains.
After Djibouti, Sinu is once again collaborating with Chakalakkal for another film named Theru. Calling that one a family action thriller, the filmmaker said, “The post-production work is currently happening in Kerala and we are planning for an OTT release.”