Kerala State Film Awards: Shahi Kabir’s journey from the Police department to an award-winning debut

Shahi Kabir, civil police officer-turned-screenwriter-director, wins Best Debut Director award at Kerala State Film Awards 2022 for his debut film Ela Veezha Poonchira. He draws experience from his police career to craft stories with a unique setting and sombre mood. He plans to explore other settings in his upcoming films.

Shahi Kabir dons more than one hat, all of them with equal ease. He draws the valuable experience of each of those different roles into his other endeavours. The days spent as a civil police officer, when he came across many peculiar situations and unique stories, have kept him in good stead when he took up screenwriting in films five years ago. His debut directorial with another police story Ela Veezha Poonchira has now fetched him the Best Debut Director award at the Kerala State Film Awards 2022.

Speaking to The Hindu after winning the award, he said it was a joy to have won that coveted award amid a tough competition, between 19 debut filmmakers. The lone police post atop the hill at Ela Veezha Poonchira in Kottayam district, where the film is set, is a much familiar place for him, having worked there for a while in 2013. Known to the general public as a tourist hotspot with beautiful views, the place transforms into an eerie setting in his film.

“I, as well as the writers Shaji Maraad and G. Nidheesh, had worked at the police station at different points of time. Back then too we had thought of it as a very promising setting for a crime story with very dark undertones,” says Mr.Kabir.

He had begun his career as a police constable back in 2005. Serious thoughts on trying his hand in cinema began around 2013-14 when he began penning scripts. A stint as an assistant director in Dileesh Pothan’s Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum was his first entry into the field. By this time, he had finished penning the script for Joseph, which would become his writing debut. Built around the life of a senior police officer, who is down and out with personal tragedies but whose brain is still sharp enough for crime investigation, the film announced the arrival of a writer with an insider’s view of the police department.

“My father was very active in the amateur drama circles. He used to take me to watch all the commercial films as well as make me sit and watch all those award-winning films which used to appear in Doordarshan. Back then, I didn’t understand much from the latter. Years later, just when I was about to get into college, I watched Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar at a film society screening. That was when I realised that films could be used in such a way too. The realisation that I could write stories of my own came years later when my colleagues began enjoying all my story narrations,” says Mr. Kabir.

‘Pace’ and ‘mood’ are the two things that hook him in the films which he enjoys, a fact which is evident in his own works too, which are marked for their calculated pace and sombre mood. Nayattu, his second film as a writer, was also set around the police force, with a portrayal of the mercilessness of a faceless system, where the hunters could become hunted before they even realise it.

“My next three films are also police-based stories, but I do wish to break from it and try other settings too,” says Mr. Kabir, who is currently on a five-year leave from the police department.