Two movies by director Don Palathara by the names ‘1956, Central Travancore’ and ‘Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam’ have been selected to the 25th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). They will be screened in the Kaleidoscope and Malayalam Cinema Today categories, respectively. It doesn’t happen very often that two movies by the same director gets picked for a film festival in the very same year.
Don Palathara is a film director, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker from Kerala, India. Known for working on shoestring budgets and new or inexperienced actors, his films are expositions of local Kerala culture and study on the human nature. Palathara’s films, gained accolades at several international film festivals, including the 42nd Moscow International Film Festival. After the world premiere of 1956, Central Travancore at 42nd Moscow International Film Festival and a subsequent screening at the Indie India fest at Spain, IFFK will be the movie’s debut screening venue in India. However, Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam will have its world premiere at the festival in February. In the black and white film, 1956, Central Travancore tells the story of a gaur hunting adventure, taken on by a group of migrant farmers in Idukki, before the land reforms. The movie is produced by Abhilash S Kumar under the banner of Art Beat Studios. Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam, starring Rima Kallingal and Jitin Puthenchery is a relationship drama, filmed as a 85-minute single shot and set exclusively in a car.
