Collector Bro’s cinematic journey from Kozhikode to Cannes

A busy civil servant, Prasanth Nair, who became popular as ‘

Collector Bro

’ during his tenure as the Kozhikode collector for his people-friendly initiatives, understands the value of time, perhaps more than most people. His maiden short film,

Daivakanam

(God Particle), which will premiere in

Cannes

, deals with the concept of time and what would happen to human existence if a person managed to stall time. He will fly to the French city from Delhi today to make last-minute arrangements and be part of the premiere.

Prasanth says that, for him, the film was more like a ‘diploma assignment’ that he took up to understand the nuances of filmmaking. “The Cannes premiere and whatever else happens will be a bonus,” he says. It was his friend and filmmaker Anjali Menon who suggested to the film-crazy IAS officer to learn the art by doing it. “She said I need not even show it to anyone or put it on YouTube,” he laughs.

Once at it, however, Prasanth, who is now with the Central tourism ministry, brought in all the professionalism and meticulousness that he had assimilated while preparing for IAS and after joining the service. “I tried to push the limits as far as possible and selected a script that was challenging to execute. It required a kind of cryptic and subtle narration as it had many layers and from the viewer’s point of view lent itself to several interpretations,” he says. Sreevalsan J Menon handles the music while Ajayan Adatt takes care of the sound which is an important aspect of the film.

At the centre of the tale is a Namboodiri astrologer, played by theatre artiste Ramesh Varma, who not only divines what is in store but also stumbles on a way of stalling the course of events; by inserting a peacock feather into a magical clock within a hanging lamp, he puts a full stop to time. Mysticism, fantasy and occult is combined with contemporary social realities and the fateful day of April 30 recurs indefinitely, and so monotonously that he finds it impossible to suffer it forever. The other important character is a casual labourer and Theyyam artiste who is at the lower end of the social ladder but turns God when he wears the Theyyam costume. Everything is on a loop including the disturbing dream that the astrologer wakes up with; that his wife is riding pillion with the Theyyam artiste in full costume on a motor bike. Finally, he unlocks time and allows May 1 to dawn, significantly the Labour Day, suggesting perhaps that progress is inevitable.

The dream of embracing the visual medium either as a cinematographer or director first took shape in Prasanth’s mind during his Loyola School days in Thiruvananthapuram when he grew up admiring Santosh Sivan’s films.

“He was an alumnus of the school and later we became friends,” says Prasanth. During his stint as Kozhikode collector, he wanted to make a promotional film for his popular Compassionate Kozhikode project but was not happy with any of the ideas presented by the ad agencies. During one such session, an agency head suggested that he helm it since he was a closet director himself and he took up the challenge. “Till then, I had only informally associated with several film people. This publicity film was well appreciated,” he says.

After the Kozhikode stint, he took a break of about 10 months before taking up his current tourism assignment and made full use of the sabbatical. The 15-minute Daivakanam was completed during this time, he co-wrote a script for Diwanjimoola Grand Prix with director Anil Radhakrishnan Menon and acted in a feature film titled Who by Ajay Devaloka which is also premiering in Cannes. By a coincidence, that movie also has a psychological approach revolving around the mind and dream and Prasanth plays a psychiatrist in it. “For one, I like Ajay’s work. Secondly, I wanted to learn about acting by doing it so that I can use the learning in future,” he says.

Prasanth feels that the skills that you need to be an administrator come in handy while making a film. “A director’s job is not merely creative. He needs to do both time management and man management. Many a producer goes bankrupt because directors do not plan their projects properly,” he says. On the other hand, his film pursuits help him to be more creative in his career as a civil servant, he says.

He reveals that he is already working on a script for a feature film. “Language doesn’t matter since the theme is not Kerala centric but universal in nature. It could be in Hindi or a multilingual film. It calls for a veteran and versatile artiste and I am in the hunt for such a person who could do justice for the script. By year-end, I hope to make good progress. It will be an artistic film with black humour but I hope it will have commercial appeal too,” he says.

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