Vikruthi's director Emcy Joseph: I was scared about whether the audience would expect too much from the film

He has worked in Dubai, has more than 100 ads to his credit as an ad filmmaker and helms the Peraka Media production house. He has also made notable short films, such as Petti and Neeyevide. However, 43-year-old Emcy Joseph had no experience in feature films per se, when he went to meet National Award winner Suraj Venjaramoodu and Soubin Shahir.

That however did not prove a hindrance, thanks to the impressive script of his debut endeavour

Vikruthi

. Both the performers signed up to do the film, alongside a host of others including National Award winner Surabhi Lakshmi and Naayika Naayakan fame Vincy. Audiences love the film, which was based on the infamous Kochi Metro trolling incident of a deaf and mute man named Eldho, and it went on to be a hit. In conversation with Joseph, we find out more about the film and himself:

“I always had films on my mind; and my ad films, short films or more, were all done with this bigger aim,” says Joseph, who won great feedback for his film from those like veteran director Lal Jose.

Ask him how he zeroed in on Eldho’s incident for his film story, he says, “What I am trying to present is our tendency to share things blindly online, through Eldho’s story. The incident in which this deaf and mute man was mistaken for a drunkard on Kochi Metro, purely after seeing him sleep in the coach and sharing his photos on social media was quite a touching story that got widely discussed in the State. I wanted to show how often our simple, thoughtless online acts lead to the spread of fake information that disrupts people’s lives.”

A notable factor about the movie is that even then, it does not demonise Soubin’s character Sameer, the man who takes Eldho’s photo and uploads it online. “It was done very consciously, because it is each one of us. We are the ones who forward posts without giving it a second thought,” says Joseph. He adds, “The casting also indicates the same. Sameer is a villain with no villainism.”

Despite having a great subject at hand, he went after no stars for casting. Joseph says this too was a conscious decision. “What I wanted for the story was performers, not stars. Just as the audience saw Soubin and Suraj on the film’s posters, the kind of reactions came by where, ‘Oh, this can have some competitive moments of performance between these two. At times, it even scared me whether the audience would expect too much from the project. However, thankfully, things went well,” says the director, who is currently working on his next project.