“It's better to watch than we explain the movie. Let the film do the talking,” said director Lijo Jose Pellissery when the host at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) asked him if he would like to say a few words about Jallikattu before its screening.
Jallikattu had its world premiere at TIFF 2019 and the team attended the event.
Lead actors Chemban Vinod, Antony Varghese and Santhy Balachandran were present along with Lijo and music composer Prashanth Pillai and cinematographer Gireesh Gangadharan.
Jallikattu, which is based on S Hareesh’s short story, Maoist, fetched wide accolades. The film was featured in TIFF’s Contemporary World Cinema section, a section dedicated to screening ‘Compelling stories, global perspectives’.
During a question and answer session Lijo stated that the story came to him a long later after Hareesh wrote it. When went through it, I realized that the space between man and beast disappears and that's where we worked. “As you can see there are many people in the movie and they are unprofessionals. I never prepared them for the movie. In fact most sequences turned so because I never prepare the artistes in my movies rather the instinct works for me,” said Lijo.
When asked about the amazing sound and musical background that the movie carried throughout, Lijo credited it to his sound designer Renganaath Ravee and music composer Prashanth Pillai and stated that he was very particular about the soundscape the movie nedded to have. He also mentioned that Renganaath couldn't join them at TIFF as he just got married.
While Lijo and Chemban were seen in casuals, Antony Varghese opted for formals and was seen in black suit. Actress Santhi grabbed attention with her fusion made traditional Kerala saree.
