Film industry is yet to give John Abraham a tribute that he deserves: Deedi Damodaran

31 years after veteran director John Abraham left the world, his friends are here to offer a tribute to the filmmaker who placed Malayalam cinema on the map of international films, through a biopic on him. The film titled John is directed by Prem Chand and written by Deedi Damodaran. The teaser of the film was released on his death anniversary by Resul Pookutty on May 31.
Prem Chand, an ardent follower of John has the idea of making a movie since years and he has been working on it for the past five years.“The youth today have not much idea about John and his contribution to Malayalam cinema. All that they know is that there is someone called John Abraham. For some, he was an anarchist and an alcoholic, while for a few he was a myth and for the rest, he was a concept to be celebrated. Nobody knows about his films in detail,” recollects Deedi Damodaran. They felt that there is a dire need to bring his relevance to the limelight. “We felt that there is no point in calling ourselves film activist or social activist, if we aren’t giving a tribute to John which has been due for decades,” she explains.
Teaser of the film
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If John has broken the idea of conflict between capital and creativity through crowdfunding during the pre-internet era, the team has crowdsourced for the film from people who really ‘know’ John- the filmmaker. “There will be so many people who know him but here we have approached those who helped him to work for the vision he had,” she says adding that being part of the movie is a social contribution for her. “While even now, we struggle to break the idea of capital and we are still struggling to make gender-neutral films, John had done it years ago,” she says.
Prem Chand and Deedi Damodaran

The director of John, Prem Chand, who has been journalist, goes emotional when he recollects his days with John Abraham. “Our campus lives were inspired from the activism that John and team had shared. Thus, we even formed a film society movement. It was back in 80s when John’s team came to Kozhikode. It had people from across the State – more than 1000. I was with him since then and even in the team that covered his death. After the funeral when I returned home, Harinarayanan, the tabla player from John Abraham’s film Amma Ariyan called me and called me over to his home. There he was waiting with a few papers which had shattered and scribbled notes written by John on the previous day of his demise. He asked me to do something with it,” he recollects adding that it is the root concept of the film. “Deedi developed the rest from it,” he says.
Prem Chand asserts that Malayalam film industry is yet to give John Abraham a tribute that he very much deserves. “"Our film captures John Abraham's attempt to collaborate with the public to overcome the dependence on capital and thus liberate and empower the medium. I feel he should be acknowledged, before I leave the world,” he says. The 75-minute-long film is currently under post production stage.