Posters of yesteryear Malayalam flicks by youth grab eyeballs

KOCHI

When reports emerged in May that the remastered version of G. Aravindan’s classic Thampu was about to be screened at Cannes Film Festival, Lainoj T.V, a movie buff and poster designer by profession, browsed the Internet for a poster of the movie but in vain.

So, he just recreated one. This was followed by the poster of another cult movie, Nirmalyam. When shared on social media, both were appreciated. Thus, was born a passion, which has since then flourished.

In the past six months, Lainoj, a 38-year-old from Kalady, has recreated the posters of over 150 films across various regional languages - Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, and Hindi – and English, though at the cost of many sleepless nights.

“It takes about five to six hours to recreate a single poster. First, I watch the chosen film in full on YouTube. I revisit the movie again to copy the title exactly as given in the credit cards and to take the screenshot of the right visual for the poster I have in mind. Then I draw the title and enhance the quality of the visual using software,” said Lainoj.

Followers of his works on social media have increased progressively and they now request for posters of films they love. Some posters are more challenging and consume more time. For instance, recreating the poster of the 1988-movie Daisy starring Kamal Hassan and Harish at the request of actor Koottickal Jayachandran was particularly difficult thanks to the grainy visuals.

The recreated poster of Adharvam, the 1989-flick starring Mammootty and directed by Dennis Joseph, so impressed its producer Eerally Balan that he asked for it to display in his office. His most appreciated works include the recreated posters of Malootty directed by Bharathan and Mel Gibson’s epic Apocalypto.

Lainoj dreams of a series of posters of films by masters. He has already covered the filmography of the late director John Abraham and wants to follow it up with the works of masters like Aravindan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.