Mohanlal makes time to dub for a children’s short film

Director Aneesh Anwar’s short film featuring a host of children imitating Mollywood stars has already gone viral. The video Lodal Loda Lodalu aims to create awareness among the student community on environment protect appealed so much to superstar Mohanlal that he offered to be part of the project.
The ‘Kumbasaaram’ director says that he showed the actor the video once he had already shot the entire project.“Once Lalettan saw it, he offered to be part of it. He asked me to come to his home and that’s where we shot his portions. As we didn’t want to further trouble him, we did spot dubbing for his scenes.”
However, actor insisted that they dub his portions in a studio so as not to compromise on the overall quality of film, Aneesh says. “He cleared his schedule for the rest of the day just so he could come to the studio to dub his portions,” he explains.
While the video has now gone viral, the making of it though was apparently a tough process. “The initial idea was to make a documentary,” says the ‘Zachariyayude Garbhinikal’ director. “But then I wanted to make it lively because we were trying to reach out to children. Lodal Loda Lodalu was composed as a song for my next song and I thought it would be apt for the short film.”
The main challenge, he says, was getting the right child actors. “Once we developed the concept, we had to find the children who could enact the roles. That took a lot of time and effort. It took at least 2 months to make the kids imitate our actors,” he says.
Interestingly, Aneesh’s previous two feature films also had him working with kids. “For ‘Zachariyayude Garbhinikal’, I had filmed a newborn and then Master Aakaash played a pivotal character in ‘Kumbasaaram’. It’s always a huge challenge getting them to act. In fact if you are able to accomplish that, then you can make anyone act,” he gushes.