As a bereaved young wife, along with her mother-in-law waits for several days for the rains to subside so that they can hold the funeral rites of her husband, layers are slowly peeled away to reveal deep and disturbing secrets that affect their relationship and the people surrounding them. ULLOZHUKKU (Malayalam, 2024) is a profound study of thwarted human desires, helmed by Christo Tomy with an expertise that immediately marks him as an auteur to reckon with. This is cinema at its most brilliant – and to think of it as Christo Tomy’s debut film, is more startling.
A two-time national award winner (for student short film exercises), 36-year-old Christo Tomy graduated from SRFTI in 2016 and had already made a mark with his brilliant true-crime documentary CURRY AND CYANIDE on Netflix. Ullozhukku’s script won the first prize from reportedly 35,000 submissions at Cinestaan India’s Storytellers Contest; it was also selected in the Co-production Market of NFDC in Goa where it was picked up by its producers.
Starring Parvathy Thiruvothu as the young widow and veteran Urvashi as her mother-in-law – two actresses who have delivered a remarkable performance marked by subdued intensity, ULLOZHUKKU is streaming on Amazon Prime. There is no way you can miss this film.
Check out the trailer here:
Ranjan Das is a Mumbai based filmmaker & faculty
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