An exotic journey

For someone who had left home in his late teens with the sole dream of becoming a filmmaker, young Sajin Baabu’s journey since then has all the trappings of a movie.

His debut movie Asthamayam Vare won him Rajatha Chakoram for the best debutant director at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) that year. Now, the young filmmaker originally from Thiruvananthapuram but settled in Kochi is on another even bigger dream run with his third movie Biriyaani creating waves in festival circuits across the world and winning awards and audiences’ hearts.

The movie was screened to packed houses at the Kochi leg of the IFFK and its all the more sweet for the youngster, as the movie was initially rejected by the jury whereafter it went to close to 50 fests across the globe and won several awards, forcing its way back to IFFK. But Mr. Baabu has no complaints whatsoever and admits that IFFK is what inspired him to become a filmmaker.

“IFFK is growing and along with it Malayalam cinema should also grow and reach wider audience. There should be a system at IFFK to pitch promising Malayalam movies before foreign delegates thus paving way for its exposure globally,” he said.

A self-taught filmmaker, he continues to learn different facets of filmmaking.

Only recently, he did a course in editing and then did sound designing for Biriyaani after learning that art.