No Man’s Land, the upcoming Malayalam film starring actors Lukman Avaran, Sudhy Kopa and Sreeja Das will release on Amazon Prime Video in November, the artists and makers announced on their social media handle.
In conversation with Silverscreen India, director Jishnu Harindra Varma, who marks his directorial debut with this film said that it is an experimental dark film with thriller and drama elements.
“No Man’s Land revolves around three characters named Mathayikkutty played by Lukman, Sumitra played by Sreeja and Ahmed played by Sudhy Kopa. Mathayikkutty is a character with psychological illness. this character was a challenging portrayal as it had layers and transformation sequence. The film has a lot of dark and negative features including usage of drugs and violence. It also deals with human emotions,” he said, adding that the film’s title No Man’s Land denotes the state of mind of these characters.
Jishnu said that it was in 2020 when he decided to make a small independent film as one of his previous projects did not materialise due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown. “Since there are psychological aspects involved in No Man’s Land, I had to do extensive research. I spoke to a lot of psychiatrists and took references from online sources to ensure right portrayal of things”.
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The film was shot for around 12 days in September 2020 in a hilly area surrounded by a tea estate in Peermade near Kuttikkanam. Jishnu said that his team spent around seven months editing and creating sound design. “Post-production was challenging. Around 40% of the film relies on sound design,” he said.
On opting for OTT release, Jishnu said that since No Man’s Land is an out-and-out dark film, it would not cater to all types of audiences. They hence decided to go for OTT streaming. Jishnu noted that he wanted a good platform for showcasing this film and hence reached out to Amazon Prime Video. He said that the streaming giant took around four months to evaluate the film thoroughly. Before making his maiden directorial venture, Jishnu had been doing ad films since 2010 and had also worked with cinematographer Madhu Ambat in his directorial team.