Noorin Shereef's Santa Cruz is a dance-based entertainer

Noorin Shereef’s next is a youthful entertainer, titled

Santa Cruz

, a “Bollywood style movie”. Debut writer-director Johnson John Fernandez says that the movie - a thriller, with dance and romance - revolves around a Fort Kochi-based dance troupe named Santa Cruz.

Dance reality show contestant Anish Rehman plays the lead character of Master Danny, with dancers like Kiron Kumar in important roles. “This is a story of friendship between four guys in the troupe, with one of them in a wheelchair. The first half is very feel-good with plenty of laughs and some politics, when the local MLA says that this year’s dance competition has been withdrawn and the four friends going against the politician. The story starts in these corona times and is told in flashback,” explains Johnson.

Noorin is also a dancer and Rahul Madhav plays an ACP and her fiance. The film also has Major Ravi, Indrans and Sohan Seenulal in prominent roles. “Noorin and Rahul have played characters which are very performance oriented. I chose newcomers for the lead roles, so that I could exercise a freedom to make the film in the way I want to,” says Johnson, adding that his film school studies come from all the movies that he has watched in the last 25 years.

The director points out that the story is also played out through the songs, which are written by Manu Manjith and composed by Sibu Sukumaran. Selvakumar S is the DoP. The film is now in post production.

The first half of the film captures the Fort Kochi ambience, and the second half - with ‘twists and turns’ - is in Goa.