Romancham, the upcoming Malayalam film starring actors Soubin Shahir and Arjun Ashokan, to be a horror-comedy based on a real-life incident, debutant director Jithu Madhavan tells Silverscreen India.
The film is produced by Johnpaul George, Soubin and Girish Gangadharan. The makers released the film’s title poster on Sunday via social media.
Speaking to Silverscreen India, Jithu says, “Romancham is a film based on a real incident that happened in my life in 2007. I was living with my friends in Bengaluru and this particular incident was witnessed by us. 90% of Romancham is based on that and I drew inspiration from my friends for building the characters. I have also set the film in 2007.”
Talking about how he decided to make a film inspired from his own life experience, he says, “I have different friend circles. When I told a few of them about my incident at Bengaluru, they laughed at me a lot and enjoyed listening to it. So, that’s when I realised people liked this story. After I entered the film industry, I thought it would be good to do a simple, light-hearted film, based on this incident.”
Having worked as an associate alongside filmmaker Johnpaul, who is known for directing films like Guppy and Ambili, Jithu pitched Romancham to him. He liked the story and took up the responsibility to help him develop it, further. After which, Girish and Soubin came on board.
“I have creative people managing the film’s production and I am very fortunate for it. They are understanding and supportive. Hence, there was no delay in commencing the project. We discussed it at the end of last year, and the film went on floors in March, this year. We wrapped up a few weeks, earlier. The film was predominantly shot in Bengaluru by Shanu Thahir,” says Jithu.
The filmmaker mentions that aside from Soubin and Arjun, budding artists and popular faces on social media such as; Sajin Gopu, Siju Sunny, Abin Bino, Jagadeesh Kumar, Afzal, Anantharaman Ajay, Joemon Jyothir and Sreejith Nair play important roles in the film.
“I did not have time to set up auditions. I had a habit of following Instagram reels or YouTube videos. And I tend to save some of the content I like. I revisited these videos and selected a few artists and roped them in for the project. We spent one week together, and I told them the story. Following which, I developed their characterisation after observing their accents, personalities, and mannerisms. It was a very organic process,” adds Jithu.
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He shares that Soubin was very cooperative and the actor got along very well with the team. This also resulted in delivering the best results on the screen. The director adds, “I was super excited to recreate what had happened in my life and to see it visually come to life in the form of a film, was exciting. I was also happy as the artists provided fresh perspectives that enhanced the film, overall.”
Romancham is currently in post-production stages with editing done by Kiran Das, currently underway. The film’s music has been composed by Sushin Shyam.
Meanwhile, Soubin, who was last seen in CBI:5, has a line-up of projects including Jack and Jill and Oru Policekaarante Maranam. He will also be making his second directorial feature titled Othiram Kadakam starring Dulquer Salmaan.