Vineeth to enact aircraft maker Saji Thomas

Of late Mollywood has seen an influx of movies inspired from real life, such as Ennu Ninte Moideen, Pathemari and Madhuranaranga.
The latest in the list is ad filmmaker Sreekanth Murali’s debut movie starring Vineeth Sreenivasan. The film will be based on the inspiring story of hearing and speech impaired Saji Thomas, who recently made the news with the ultra-light aircraft he designed and built, using recycled materials.
Interestingly, when the scribe of the film, Santhosh Echikanam, called up Vineeth to ask if he is interested in playing the lead, the actor-director was thrilled because he was also contemplating making a movie based on a similar theme.
Santhosh tells us, “For the past one year, I have been busy scripting a movie on a speech and hearing-impaired boy who achieves greatness by designing an aircraft. I got the thread from a friend who has a differently-abled son.”
The scriptwriter explains that while scripting, he happened to read an article on Saji and decided to visit him. “I spoke to him and his wife Mariyam, and their story gave me the right perspective and charged me up. Vineeth too was excited on listening to my idea,” he says.
The Annayum Rasoolum scribe adds that Vineeth had been collecting information on Saji from newspapers. “Vineeth told me that Mollywood needs more such movies that are closer to reality,” Santhosh says, adding that Vineeth’s next directorial venture Jacobinte Swargarajyam is also inspired from real life.
On the shoot schedule of the movie based on Saji which is yet to be titled, its director Srikanth Murali informs us that the pre-production of the film is on and the shooting will begin after Vineeth winds up Jacobinte Swargarajyam.
“Though our movie will be based on reality, it will be a commercial film that will entertain the audience. It will also introduce a lot of new faces to the industry,” says the director.