Aneek to resume ‘Katti Nrittam’ shooting soon

Bengali Filmmaker’s Malayalam film ‘Katti Nrittam’ is reaching its last leg of shooting after a long wait of one year. Aneek Chaudhuri started the shoot of the film in November 2019 and completed 80 percent of the film’s shoot by March 2020; then, the lockdown happened.
'Katti Nrittam' derives its name from Kathi Vesham (used in Kathakali referring to diabolic characters in the art form) and in this film, if we go by its literal meaning, it states ‘knife dance’.Katti Nrittam is a modern-day take on Mahabharata from a female gaze.
As per Aneek, “The epics, mythology evolve with time; it changes the era from being patriarchal to an equal society. This film is all about Draupadi’s revenge and here, we have portrayed Ved Vyas as a female.”

Katti Nrittam stars Rahul Sreenivasan, Husne Shabnam, Anuska Chakraborty, Rukmini Sircar in titular roles; Sabuj Bardhhan also portrays an important role in the film. Aneek further adds, “Rahul portrays Arjuna, who is a failed Kathakali dancer; he has been characterized as a psychopath killer who ends up being the kidnapper of Subhadra.”
The Work-in-progress cut of the film had been recently shown at Cannes, EFM Berlinale, NFDC Film Bazaar, FILMART and have garnered rave response. A cut was also made accessible for people in Kerala and it opened up more responses from that region.
Speaking about why he decided to make the 140-minute long Malayalam film, the director says: “Why a Malayalam film? This is the question I have faced this one and a half years. The answer is simple! I do not know any other region in our country that produces more impactful films than Malayalam Cinema. It impacted me hugely too. That’s where it all began.”
He adds, “We have waited for long; this witnessed producers signing contracts and fleeing away. I had also faced criticism from the team due to the same; therefore, I must say that I never had a strong team or unconditional team, until my current film (Miss Khan, ab to hans do). That was a pretty tough time for me, being the director. I was almost left alone, if not for a few persons from my technical team and, Rahul, Anuska, and Husne Shabnam from the cast. It was tougher to come back strong. But that’s how it is meant to be. I am okay with it.”