2023: Looking back with gratitude

Jude Anthany Joseph's 2018 film was India's official entry in the Academy Awards; Rima Kallingal's Mamangam Dance Company mounted its first production; K R Sunil's series of photographs of Chavittunadakam artistes; Tom Vattakuzhy's works inspiring a film & exhibiting at India Art Fair.

Jude Anthany Joseph, director

I am getting over the disappointment of 2018: Everyone is a Hero having to bow out of the Oscar race, but I know I will get another chance and I will be back at the Academy Awards. When I look back on the year, I am grateful (personally and professionally) to 2023 for 2018 and the way it was received. And it is not so much the feedback from my peers and others in the industry but the ordinary man I meet when I go to the supermarket or to watch a film. They ask me how I made a film like 2018. I feel that, now, even if 10 of my films flop, I will still be known for that one film. I met a Malayali family on my recent trip to Los Angeles who couldn’t stop talking about 2018. It made me think that, perhaps, making the film is the purpose of my life.   I hope to make a lot of films: Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and, of course, in Malayalam. But here’s the thing — they will all have the signature of a Malayali filmmaker. I have signed on with an LA-based talent agency DAA, Inc. I expected to be busy till March (with the Academy Awards) but since that has opened up, let’s see which project materialises first. 

Jude Anthany Joseph’s blockbuster film 2018 was India’s official entry in the category for international feature film at the 2024 Academy Awards. The film did not make it to the shortlist.

 Rima Kallingal, dancer/actor-producer 

I am grateful for the art in my life. From (the character of) Bhargavi (in the 2023 film Neelavelicham) and for Neythe, a dance production mounted by my dance company, Mamangam, to the upholstery I changed to the bouquet of flowers I made. Art kept me from drowning in 2023. I have become acutely conscious of how lucky I am to be an artist in this lifetime and that the vulnerability, emotions, and sensitivity that come along with it are lifelines. It [art] breaks me down and builds me up and never lets me settle! 

I am looking forward to, in 2024, to doing things I haven’t done till now. Maybe write something or mixology. Or I will finally learn to make my mother’s fish curry and, while I am it, have that serious mom-and-daughter conversation that needs to happen in everyone’s lifetime. 

Rima Kallingal’s Mamangam Dance Company mounted its maiden, original dance production Neythe, an ode to weavers and weaving, in Kochi and Bengaluru.