Malayalam short film ‘Manavalan in Trouble’ has employees of UST working behind and in front of the camera

Arun Mohan, a young, successful filmmaker at a village in Kannur. News spreads that Prithviraj, the hero of his last two blockbuster films, would be attending the wedding function. The village folk, his relatives, the bride’s friends and family are thrilled by the news. So, by the time Arun gets a message from Prithviraj that he might not make it for the function, preparations to welcome the actor have gone overboard. The incidents that follow are captured with fun and flair in the short film, Manavalan in Trouble, directed by Abinand PE, an employee of IT major, UST, in Thiruvananthapuram.

The highlight of the short is that employees of UST make up the cast and crew of the film, just like Abinand’s first short film, Blockbuster Days, released in 2023. “Out of the 70-plus actors, more than 95% of them work in my company. We had put out an in-house casting call. There was no audition. Instead I asked them to send in a reel to show their acting skills and the selection was made on the basis of that,” he says.

Abinand PE, director of the short film Manavalan in Trouble
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Abinand, who is also the writer and editor of the film, says that the idea has been with him for sometime. “I had planned it as a story set on a college campus, where the union inauguration is set to be done by a super star. Later I developed it into the current storyline. I had mounted it on a large canvas but had to cut it down due to financial constraints,” says Abinand.

The film was shot in and around Thiruvananthapuram. “The shoot, primarily on weekends, was over in four days. But the post production took nearly six months because we could work on it only after office hours. It was a struggle for me and technicians in the crew,” he says.

Most members of the technical crew of Blockbuster Days have worked in this short as well. “As for the actors, majority of them were facing the camera for the first time. The rest just had the experience of working in Blockbuster Days.”

The cast of Manavalan in Trouble, who are employees of UST in Thiruvananthapuram
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

With hopes of entering tinsel town some day, Abinand has mounted the short like a feature film, just like Blockbuster Days. “Over 150 people have worked on this project, which is quite a big number for this format. We did not compromise on anything, including the poster design and VFX [by Aswanth Kodiyeri]. All of us enjoyed working on this despite the difficulties in balancing it with our job,” he says.

A still from the short film Manavalan in Trouble made by the employees of UST in Thiruvananthapuram
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Drona Jithendranath plays Arun Mohan and Navya Nair his bride, Sruthy. Produced by Bitstream Pictures & Sonicvision and Sarva Community Pharmacy, the film has background score and music by Abhilash Prabhasurendran. Cinematography is by Anand Reghunathan, Naveen BG and Sivas Ramar.

The 36-minute film is streaming on YouTube.