Getting to the bottom of it

On Saturday evening, Ronnie Manuel Joseph gets an email from Youtube. His short film Padakkam that has gathered over 1.5 lakh views in three weeks, has been removed. The reason they give is ‘inappropriate content’, as suggested by spam reports.

 

Ronnie is confused. He is two short films old, plus a music video called Yelove. That first short film he did – Cinemabaaki – had a lot of appreciation but then it got very few views. “I had written the script and directed it. The few who watched it said good things about it,” says Ronnie. Among them was Vineeth Sreenivasan. But when Ronnie asked if he could share it, Vineeth said this was not his best work, and he would share the best one. He kept his promise when Padakkam came out and put it on his Facebook, tagging Ronnie. And then it got spread around fast.

 

Padakkam shows two lives, one of a child growing up motherless with memories of a lullaby he heard as a baby, and the other of a sex worker. Kani Kusruthi plays the sex worker, at first rebuking the child who seems to follow her everywhere. “He is the cousin of Padakkam’s scriptwriter Aneesh R, who I met during the making of my first film, and who became the hero of it.” All his meetings, it would seem, are by chance. Ronnie met his cameraman Bilu one day when he was walking on the MG Road in Kochi. “I had seen and loved his photographs on Facebook before. So I recognised him when I saw him.” Bilu then became part of the team making the film. It is through Bilu that Ronnie got to direct the music video Yelove featuring singer-turned-actor Siddharth Menon.

 

Ronnie works in an IT company and is now in Bangalore for a short term. He has always been interested in films and the making of it. It just never happened till his friends encouraged him to start writing. After Cinemabaaki, activist Maithreyan had also sent a message to Ronnie appreciating the good work. So when Padakkam got written, Ronnie asked Maithreyan if Kani, his actor daughter, could act. “We have been very impressed by her work, seeing her in Kerala Cafe, and in a Tamil film called Pisaasu. We called and she agreed.”

 

Now, Ronnie is trying to find out about the removal of Padakkam. “We use the song Unniyaaraariro from the film Ragendu Kiranangal in the film. That had led to some copyright issues with HMV Saregama, which owns it. The law lets you use it as coming from a radio or television, and that’s how we used it. We also spoke to them and agreed that they could take the money coming through this. But I am not sure if that’s what led to the removal now. We hope to upload it again.”