The five directors of the Malayalam anthology, ‘Freedom Fight’ talk about their stories

The stories in the anthology are based on real-life people and incidents

Freedom Fight, currently streaming on SonyLIV, was conceptualised by Jeo Baby who felt that making a full-length feature film during the pandemic would not be an easy proposition. “That was why I zeroed in on an anthology,” says Jeo, director of landmark film, The Great Indian Kitchen. Besides him, the line-up includes Akhil Anilkumar, Kunjila Mascillamani, Francies Louis, and Jithin Issac Thomas. Jeo says the accent was on good content and they had to go through several scripts before finalising the four stories.

“While Francies is the editor of The Great Indian Kitchen, it was through my cinematographer Salu K Thomas that I came across Kunjila, who was Salu’s senior at Satyajit Ray Film Institute. In Jithin’s case, I was impressed by his first work, Attention Please, which was screened at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). I met him through a common friend. Akhil came into the project when he called me for the contact number of a streaming platform to pitch the idea of his short film. I asked him to come on board,” Jeo explains.

Jeo says that the title was not a pre-planned one. “When we watched the films together we felt that they all handle the concept of freedom in different ways. The directors had the liberty to shoot as they wanted. So, in a way, it was about giving creative freedom to these filmmakers,” says Jeo.

Jomon Jacob, Dijo Augustine, Sajin S Raj and Vishnu Rajan, the producers of The Great Indian Kitchen, have produced the anthology.

In a chat with MetroPlus, the five directors talk about their respective films and the experience.

Director: Akhil Anilkumar

Geethu (Rajisha Vijayan), the protagonist, wants to break free from the expectations of her family and societal conditioning