Malayalam Cinema Today
KISS WAGON / KISS WAGON
Midhun Murali
Director's bio
Midhun Murali
Director's biography: Midhun Murali, an independent filmmaker hailing from Kerala, India, fell in love with the art of film making right from his childhood, as he was lucky enough to see how films were projected on a giant screen from an analogue projector in his very young days itself, as his uncle used to be a film projectionist. He used to thread and operate 16mm and 35mm film projectors all by himself when he was 8-9 years old. Later, knowing world cinema and getting inspired through the works of masters like Rohmer, Lynch and Bunuel, he commenced his cinematic journey at 14 with the short film "Dawn”. Subsequently, he crafted multiple abstract shorts. Though cinema was always his first love, he briefly pursued a career in merchant navy due to adverse financial circumstances. However, in 2015, he abandoned sailing to make indie films with micro budget, where he found the right space to experiment with the form and structure of cinema. His debut feature film, "Grahanam" (2015), shot on a base model DSLR, marked the beginning. "Humania" followed in 2017, which was again created with unimaginable budget constrains, casting his friends and handling almost all the aspects of film-making himself. Despite relentless effort and limited budgets, he constantly indulged on his craft without worrying about the reception of his works. In 2019, he met his creative partner, Greeshma Ramachandran at a film society screening of his film “Humania”. Greeshma is a poet and writer who shared almost the same interests in cinema with Midhun. They both shared an interest to create music too, even though both weren’t professionally trained in music. What initially started as a concept musical album eventually developed into an idea for a 3 hour long epic feature film, which they titled: “Kiss wagon”. For the extreme introverts they are, it was unthinkable for them to approach production houses for pitching their high budget venture. Brainstorming further gave them an idea, inspired from the traditional shadow plays of Kerala, where they are hailing from. They started taking numerous photographs of various objects and started compositing it into images in order to tell their story. It took them 30 to 40 photographs to create a single shot and over a course of 3 years, they managed to create 2150 such shots to complete their 3 hour long epic film “Kiss wagon”. Apart from writing the screenplay and creating images out of thin air, they went ahead and created 14 songs in various genres and numerous scores to complete their film. Greeshma singlehandedly did the dubbing of all the female characters including kids in the film while Midhun and their common friend Jicky Paul did the dubbing of all male characters. Quite unlike Midhun’s attitude of not submitting his previous works to any film festivals or trying to release his works before an audience, this time they took a giant leap by sending the film to the prestigious IFFR (International film festival Rotterdam 2024) and got selected in the Tiger Competition. The film eventually went ahead and won 2 awards in the event, Tiger Special Jury Award and FIPRESCI award. Director's Filmography: Grahanam (Fiction / Language: Malayalam / Genre: Drama / Dur: 1 hr 27 min / 2015) Humania (Fiction / Language: Malayalam / Genre: Drama / Dur: 1 hr 36 min / 2017) Kiss Wagon (Fiction / Language: Malayalam / Genre: Fantasy / Dur: 2 hrs 54 min / 2023)
Synopsis
In tumultuous ‘Mountland’, ruled by a wealthy tyrant, Ms. Isla runs a parcel service. With the major religious festival, ‘Atqaba,’ approaching, she receives an unusual parcel destined for a strange address from a VIP. Isla, an extremely self-centered girl, never knew what a roller coaster ride she was about to encounter in her upcoming days. The question is: Will she complete this mission?
Details of Cast
Greeshma Ramachandran (Leading Actress - Voice of all female characters in the film including the lead character, isla), Midhun Murali (Supporting Actor - Capt. Hump (and the voice of several other supporting male characters)), Jicky Paul (Supporting Actor - Film projectionist Mr. Pablo (and the voice of all remaining male characters))
Details of Crew
Midhun Murali (Editor), Midhun Murali (Sound Designer ), Midhun Murali (Animation), Midhun Murali and Greeshma Ramachandran (Music), Anand Babu (7.1 sound mixing) (Other)
Producer Details
Murali D
Writer Details
Midhun Murali, Greeshma Ramachandran
Stills
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