THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:Perumbadavam Sreedharan and Paul Zachariah will join hands to produce a docu-fiction on Oru Sankeerthanam Pole, the novel that has set a record in Malayalam literature with 60 editions since 1993.
Though Perumbadavam’s masterpiece portrays the story of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) and his wife Anna, he had never been to Russia. But the novel proved his bonding with the Russian language. Now 21 years after he wrote the novel, Perumbadavam will travel to Russia for the first time coinciding with the work being made into a docu-fiction scripted by Paul Zachariah.
The soft- spoken Perumbadavam said he always wanted to visit Russia, the land of great writers like Anton Chekhov and Alexander Pushkin. There was a time when you needed close ties with the Marxist leaders for a visit to Russia. I never had that kind of friendship,” he said.
The film to be directed by documentary film maker Shiny Jacob Benjamin will be shot in Russia and Perumbadavam in Muvattupuzha in Ernakulam district in November. Noted cinematographer K. G. Jayan will crank the camera and Mr Xavi Mano Mathew will produce it.
Zachariah said that for the first time both Russian and Malayalam literature would complement each other in a Malayalam film.
“It took me two weeks to prepare the script and the docu-fiction is likely to be of 45 minutes’ duration. A great literary work is going to be made on a wider canvas in the medium of cinema,” said Zachariah.
Set in the city of Saint Petersburg, the story deals with the life of Dostoyevsky and his love affair with Anna who would later become his wife. Perumbadavam, who is the chairman of Kerala Sahitya Akademi, has authored scripts for 12 Malayalam films and has won the Kerala state film award for Sooryadanam (1989).
